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通过在网上写作（例如博客文章或 Hacker News 的评论）后收到邮件回应，这种体验在过去几年里发生了翻天覆地的变化。过去，这些互动曾是真诚连接、拓展人脉与学习的来源；但如今，它们越来越被未经请求的产品推介填满。数据分析证实了这一走向：2013 年到 2021 年间，收到的邮件里含有推介内容的占比为零，而到了 2026 年，这一比例已飙升至 88% 。
大型语言模型显著推动了这种趋势——它们让高度个性化的"冷邮件"可以实现自动化。这类邮件往往会借用某条具体评论或文章的内容来伪装成真正的咨询，仿佛在传达"我确实很想进行坦诚交流"的兴趣。由于发送者把真实目的藏在看似周到的问题后面，接收者常常会被引导去投入时间做一份细致回复，却在后续邮件中迎来销售上的转折。
这种增长黑客式的手段从根本上瓦解了线上讨论应有的默契。营销者把好奇心当作武器，同时假装感兴趣，试图把原本偶然促成交流的空间变成收集潜在客户的猎场。情绪上的消耗也很明显：它迫使接收者对每一封来信都保持戒备，从而滋生不信任，并让人很难区分哪些人是真正有兴趣，哪些人只是借着虚假的理由来套取价值。
为了守住自己的时间与精力，许多人不得不采取防御策略，比如先发简短、含糊的回复来核实对方，再考虑是否展开深入沟通。这种防御态度本身就很不舒服，因为它要求把同一社区里的成员当作"有罪者"，直到对方证明清白。于是，讨论技术或有趣项目的乐趣被持续威胁：随时可能遇到披着不怀好意外衣的广告宣传。
尽管挫败感不断加剧，人们仍不愿干脆把公共资料里的联系方式都删掉。偶尔出现的、真正有意义的连接仍有价值，因此大门还没有完全关上——只是噪音与信号之间的比例早已失控。最终，尽管过去那种互联网景象可能不会再回来了，难题依然在于：在源源不断的自动化推介涌入之下，如何继续穿行这些互动，并在其中寻找到真正的人与人的连接。
The experience of receiving emails in response to online writing, such as blog posts or Hacker News comments, has shifted dramatically over the last few years. While these interactions were once a source of genuine connection, networking, and learning, they have increasingly become saturated with unsolicited product pitches. Data analysis confirms this trend, showing that the share of received emails containing pitches has surged from zero between 2013 and 2021 to 88 percent in 2026.
Large Language Models have significantly accelerated this trend by enabling the automation of highly personalized cold emails. These messages often masquerade as authentic inquiries by referencing specific comments or posts, effectively creating a deceptive persona of someone interested in an honest exchange. Because the sender hides their true intent behind a seemingly thoughtful question, the recipient is often tricked into investing time in a detailed reply, only to be hit with a sales pivot in the subsequent message.
This growth hacking tactic fundamentally undermines the social contract of online discourse. By weaponizing curiosity and feigning interest, marketers are turning what was once a space for serendipitous connection into a hunting ground for leads. The emotional toll is significant, as it forces the recipient to approach every incoming message with suspicion, creating a sense of distrust and making it difficult to differentiate between someone with a legitimate interest and someone attempting to extract value under false pretenses.
To protect their time and mental energy, many are forced to adopt defensive strategies, such as sending short, non-committal replies to vet the sender before engaging in a full conversation. This defensive stance feels inherently unpleasant, as it requires treating fellow community members as guilty until proven innocent. It creates an environment where the joy of discussing technology or interesting projects is constantly threatened by the prospect of being advertised to under false colors.
Despite the mounting frustration, there is a hesitation to simply remove contact information from public profiles. The value of the occasional, meaningful connection keeps the doors open, even though the noise-to-signal ratio has become overwhelming. Ultimately, while the internet of the past may not be returning, the challenge remains to keep navigating these interactions in hopes of finding genuine human connection amidst the relentless influx of automated pitches.
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- 直接邮件仍然是促成"偶然性"人际连接的宝贵工具，但由于海量自动化、由 LLM 生成的垃圾邮件，许多用户已经停止分享联系方式。
- 自动化外联变得高度复杂：脚本会抓取论坛和 GitHub，生成个性化且带欺骗性的推销内容，模仿人类的好奇心，从而绕过过滤器和怀疑。
- 人们对"老互联网"有着深切的失落感：当时的公共论坛推动真正的智力交流，而如今却变成了 lead-generation 机器人和营销手段的狩猎场。
- 一些倡导防御措施的人建议使用邮箱别名、通过要求对方证明"人性"的自动回复器来筛查，或转向只凭邀请、由担保人背书的社区结构，以维持质量。
- 对"人类证明（proof of humanity）"系统的质疑也很普遍：身份验证可能带来隐私风险，而简单的金钱门槛（例如入会费）或许会在无意中剥夺低收入背景用户的权利。
- 职业与学术环境中的沟通也在退化：团队成员越来越依赖 AI 来整合想法，出现了一种缺乏真正理解、偏表演性的"Claude-ism"式互动。
- 随着大型平台日益碎片化，充斥 AI 驱动内容与社交工程攻击，一场要求回归"线下生活（meat space）"以及建立小规模、手工维护、以人为中心网络的运动正在兴起。
- 反对 anti-LLM 情绪的批评者认为，技术本质上是作为界面而非代理存在的；用户不必惧怕这种变化，而应把注意力放在信息的底层真实性上，不论其来源如何，从而适应新的现实。
- 当前的危机被视为一场"公共资源悲剧"：自动化大众传播的便利性会激励不良行为，而这些行为破坏了人们赖以生存的连接渠道。
- 尽管噪音不断，人们仍相信，对"充满垃圾（slop-filled）"的数字空间的挫败感，最终会促使人们重新寻找更简单、手写代码、且真正由人类策划的互联网角落。
这场讨论折射出数字通信领域广泛的信任危机，其根源在于 LLM 被武器化用于冷外联、钓鱼和假招募。参与者哀悼"机缘巧合般的互联网"消失：过去公开的电子邮箱地址能促成有意义的合作，如今却只会引发即时怀疑，并带来巨大的垃圾邮件过滤负担。虽然有人呼吁建立更严格、甚至更排他的社区结构来保护人类互动，但也有人强调，在全球多元用户面前维持可访问性并不容易。最终，多数观点指向：在当下的"AI-enshittification"时代，人们正被迫从开放的大规模平台撤离，转向更小、更安全、并且在本质上更容易由人类核验的社交圈。 • Direct email remains a valuable tool for serendipitous human connection, but many users have stopped sharing contact information because of the overwhelming volume of automated, LLM-generated spam.
• Automated outreach has become highly sophisticated, with scripts scraping forums and GitHub to create personalized, deceptive pitches that mimic human curiosity to bypass both filters and skepticism.
• There is a profound sense of loss regarding the "old internet," where public forums facilitated genuine intellectual exchange rather than serving as hunting grounds for lead-generation bots and marketing hustles.
• Some advocates for defensive measures suggest using email aliases, auto-responders that challenge the sender to prove their humanity, or moving toward invite-only and vouch-based community structures to maintain quality.
• Skepticism toward "proof of humanity" systems exists, as identity verification risks privacy, while simple monetary barriers like entry fees can inadvertently disenfranchise users from lower-income backgrounds.
• Professional and academic environments are experiencing a degradation of communication, where team members increasingly rely on AI to synthesize thoughts, leading to a superficial, "Claude-ism" style of interaction that lacks true understanding.
• A growing movement encourages a return to "meat space" and small, manual, human-centric networks, as large platforms become balkanized and overrun by AI-driven content and social engineering attacks.
• Critics of the anti-LLM sentiment argue that technology acts as an interface rather than an agent, and that instead of fearing the transition, users should adapt to the new reality by focusing on the underlying truth of information regardless of its origin.
• The current crisis is viewed as a "tragedy of the commons," where the ease of automated mass-communication incentivizes bad behavior that destroys the very channels of connection that people rely on to get ahead.
• Despite the noise, a belief persists that the frustration with "slop-filled" digital spaces will eventually spark a renaissance of simpler, hand-coded, and genuinely human-curated internet corners.
The discussion reflects a widespread crisis of confidence in digital communication, driven by the weaponization of LLMs for cold outreach, phishing, and fake recruitment. Participants are mourning the loss of the "serendipitous internet," where public email addresses once led to meaningful collaborations but now trigger immediate suspicion and massive spam filtering burdens. While some call for stricter, potentially exclusive community structures to preserve human interaction, others emphasize the challenges of maintaining accessibility for diverse global users. Ultimately, the consensus suggests that the current era of "AI-enshittification" is forcing a retreat from open, large-scale platforms toward smaller, more secure, and inherently human-verifiable social circles.