I will provide my personal opinion, although hopefully I don't offend :-)
Scoble is the poster child of "Social media", half-bit hacks who think they're "social media entrepreneurs" subscribe to his views (what he likes and dislikes) and follow/like his profiles on various sites (Facebook, Twitter, Google+) but the majority don't actually care about what he has to say, they just do it to validate their own position. "I'm a social media entrepreneur, I subscribe to Robert Scoble!" so while his numbers are impressive the amount of people who actually care about what he has to say is minimal.
It's the same "phenomena" that affects Techcrunch, take a look at their Twitter, they have 2 MILLION followers and yet when they post a link to a new article they've posted it gets ~500 clicks in a day. People subscribe to Scoble for the same reason they subscribe to Techcrunch: They want to show they are "with it" and are part of what Techcrunch and Scoble represent (modern media) but they don't really care about either of them individually.
Hacker news on the other hand is a community of people who come here to find things, if something is posted to Hacker news and get upvotes it's because people care about that post, it's not because they love hacker news.
I think in this neck of the woods it's hard to offend anyone. On the other side of the river though, where the socialites put up camp, things are different. They thrive on "taking offense" & spreading vapid rumors.
Scoble is the poster child of "Social media", half-bit hacks who think they're "social media entrepreneurs" subscribe to his views (what he likes and dislikes) and follow/like his profiles on various sites (Facebook, Twitter, Google+) but the majority don't actually care about what he has to say, they just do it to validate their own position. "I'm a social media entrepreneur, I subscribe to Robert Scoble!" so while his numbers are impressive the amount of people who actually care about what he has to say is minimal.
It's the same "phenomena" that affects Techcrunch, take a look at their Twitter, they have 2 MILLION followers and yet when they post a link to a new article they've posted it gets ~500 clicks in a day. People subscribe to Scoble for the same reason they subscribe to Techcrunch: They want to show they are "with it" and are part of what Techcrunch and Scoble represent (modern media) but they don't really care about either of them individually.
Hacker news on the other hand is a community of people who come here to find things, if something is posted to Hacker news and get upvotes it's because people care about that post, it's not because they love hacker news.