Could it be generated? Sure. But there aren't the obvious tells you act like there are.
"We underestimated the gravitational pull of existing platforms. Network effects aren't just a moat, they're a wall."
It's a mixed metaphor which doesn't make any sense. There are really very few ways in which this can be considered good writing - I guess the grammar is ok even if it is nonsense.
So let's break it down - underestimated the gravitational effects - ok, this is nice, like where it's going talking about these big competitors sucking in users, but then we have the metaphor extended to breaking point:
Network effects are a moat, but not just a moat, they're a wall (which is really not anything like a moat). So which of these 3 things are they, and why are we mixing the metaphors of gravity (pulling in customers), moats (competitive moat) and walls (walled gardens).
It's just all a bit nonsensical and the kind of fuzzy prose that seems superficially impressive without actually saying anything meaningful in which LLMs excel. Go try generating an article from just the heads in this article, and see how similarly it reads.
Compare to the canonical example from Cyrano de Bergerac: ''Tis a rock! ... a peak! ... a cape! -- A cape, forsooth! 'Tis a peninsular!'
Also the problems here stem from mixing metaphors between things that attract and repel, and mixing up attracting customers and repelling competitors without clear explanation.
That’s what makes this bad writing and a classic example of LLM slop which people are willing to make post-hoc excuses to try to make sense of. It doesn’t make sense because sense was not involved in the making of it.
Also werent all "moats" commonly paired with a wall in real life? As in a moat around a castle wall?
In business metaphors no they are used for different things and also when you create a metaphor you should stick with it, that’s what makes this jarring and weird.
I don't care so much about Digg, but the endless "haha, I caught you!" comments annoy me more than the rare actual AI-written content they label.
If they wanted to keep it to a single sentence, they could have used a a word like "rather" to act as a separator between moat and wall.
