I agree. He just seems brutally honest, and that gets him in trouble. But hate him or love him, the guy does a great job with TWIST. I do not use Mahalo, so I cannot speak for it.
Like you, I know Mahalo mostly from knowing about it and skipping past their entries in Google results, but I wouldn't doubt that these kinds of sites enjoy a lot of clicks from people who just don't know English or the Internet very well. Understandable words are understandable words.
The problems people have with Mahalo and their ilk are unimportant to 90% of the people on the Internet. Many are perfectly comfortable typing "how to cross street?" into google or their isp homepage and clicking the top link. Boom: business model.
Judging by the positive sentiment in these comments for TWIST and Launch - and AOL's acquisition of TechCrunch (Read: Once MA jumps, they won't be able to sustain content and traffic) - there may be a lot of good opportunities ahead for JC.
Agreed. I found him annoying when I first encountered him on TWIT (wouldn't shut up about Twitter), but after viewing a few dozen episodes of TWIST would welcome him into my home like a brother.
I don't think it's possible to assess a 'general consensus' on almost anything here. There are themes, they recur disproportionately on certain threads, but do most commenters (much less readers) agree on a position, even if it is oft/loudly expressed? Hard to say anything more than 'many' or 'loud' people have an opinion.
The general consensus on HN is that he doesn't treat people well or is somehow not very "honest".
Personally, I'm a big fan. I watch every episode and I generally agree with most of what he says.