[ethbr1]

This. The central issue is the bait and switch.

The bait: here is a ton of text

The historical implication: because there is a lot of it, I put a lot of thought and effort into writing it

The new normal: there is ZERO signal about the magnitude of human thought and effort that went into something on the basis of its length

... and what really pisses people off about that: when AIstas intentionally abuse that social contract to their benefit.

E.g. people who pass AI content off as their own, people who don't read their own genai before pasting to you, everyone on LinkedIn

[throwawee]

>The historical implication: because there is a lot of it, I put a lot of thought and effort into writing it

Really? That must be some ancient history, because I've seen rambling walls of text on the internet derided for decades. I always appreciated the Feynmanian respect for economy of time over traditional formats, where if authors said their piece but still had space they'd damn well fill it.

(Of course, slide all the way down that slippery slope and you'll just hit Twitter.)

[low_tech_love]

I understand what you mean and it’s not wrong, but still there is a contract that is being fulfilled: human in both ends. Whether it’s rambling or not, someone wrote it, and it represents a person’s idea of whatever is being discussed. That contract is now broken, but in an asymmetrical way, only one side gets to save time. My brain refuses to spend time reading crap that I don’t even know if someone even took time to prompt. Maybe they just wrote “give me something to post, whatever makes me look smart”. It’s just completely broke for me and makes me actually sick in the stomach when I read almost anything (textual uncanny valley?)

[butlike]

Depends on if it's a non-formatted rant or not. Generally, traditionally, long form non-rant responses have been more thoughtful than not. This can no longer be assumed

[ethbr1]

If you received an email at work that was three paragraphs, you wouldn't assume the author put in more work than a one-sentence reply?

[codebje]

I don't think it's a new normal. In my experience a large volume of text rarely has a lot of information to convey. Instead, it's intended to convey the sense that a lot of work has been done.

The consultant mindset set this trend before AI made it all worse.