"Removing comments... affects the reading experience itself: it may take away the motivation to engage with a topic more deeply..."

"... and to share it with a wider group of readers. In a phenomenon known as shared reality, our experience of something is affected by whether or not we will share it socially. Take away comments entirely, and you take away some of that shared reality, which is why we often want to share or comment in the first place. We want to believe that others will read and react to our ideas."

From "The Psychology of Online Comments," by Maria Konnikova.