I'd say it's because the submitter for the linked submission, with username cransa (https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cransa), is only 17 hours old, while the submitter of the active link is m1 (https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=m1), a user for 2 years. It is interesting that m1 hasn't commented on any submissions in months, and this submission is one of only two in his history. If he's been active recently, he's only been lurking. Of course, it shouldn't matter how old the user is or what their activity history looks like, so long as the submission isn't spam. The deaded submission clearly isn't spam and cransa's comments aren't spammy either (and that dead link is his only submission to boot), but this isn't the first time the mods have decided to give preference to links submitted by older users (edit: as well giving preference to other users with no discernible rationale for doing so). As well, in my own observations, it appears that there is a upvote/comment threshold that once crossed means the rising submission is liable to get killed. That is, if a rising submission has ~10-20 upvotes but no comments, it seems at greater risk of being deaded. And of course there's the auto-hellban for new users that decide to jump into active discussions, regardless of their comments' content. I think that's a more insidious action than any of the preceding.
tl;dr: Mods = Gods
(I don't know if qubitsam deleted the comment of his own accord. But assuming he didn't: Please, dear gods/mods, consider not deleting this one too.)
That's not the first time I see an article with that many upvotes dead. Was it 'not dead' first? If so then it was a moderation action.