I think one thing going on is that the form of argument is unfamiliar to a lot of readers. Many seem to have taken away that the paper’s about the concerns the “Blueprint” it mentions sets out to address, or about traditional bonus structures or variable or productivity-based pay, because the intro covers both of those things in some detail—rather, the paper is laying those out as background. The paper is not about those.
This is a common form for papers and arguments in the social sciences, but maybe a lot of HNers aren’t used to it.
[edit] to be clear, the paper lays out plainly that this is the case, and a person unfamiliar with this way of writing could figure it out from the text per se, but if one is not looking out for this kind of structure I can see how one might overlook the parts where it straight-up says “that’s not what this is about: here is what this is about”
This is a common form for papers and arguments in the social sciences, but maybe a lot of HNers aren’t used to it.
[edit] to be clear, the paper lays out plainly that this is the case, and a person unfamiliar with this way of writing could figure it out from the text per se, but if one is not looking out for this kind of structure I can see how one might overlook the parts where it straight-up says “that’s not what this is about: here is what this is about”