GoKawiilBlogger documents rise of AI-written deceptive pitch emails disguised as questions
A writer analyzed years of emails received in response to blog posts and Hacker News comments and found that what used to be genuine, thoughtful outreach has shifted mostly to disguised sales pitches. He describes a recurring pattern where senders open with a personalized compliment and an innocent-seeming question, only to pivot into promoting their own product once he replies at length.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
The account suggests LLMs have lowered the cost of crafting convincing, personalized-sounding cold outreach, letting senders mimic authentic curiosity to extract free engagement — an 'amplification attack' as the writer calls it, where a few sentences prompt paragraphs of free labor in response. If this pattern is widespread, it could erode trust in unsolicited email generally, pushing recipients like this writer to stop responding to genuine inquiries alongside the deceptive ones, which would be a loss for authentic outreach.
- A blogger found that sincere-seeming emails referencing his HN comments have increasingly turned out to be disguised product pitches.
- He attributes the shift to LLMs making it easy to write convincing, personalized opening questions that later pivot to a sales ask.
- He says the deception, not the pitching itself, is what has made him reconsider replying to emails asking questions.
Source: joshstrange.com, 2026-11-09
Published there as: “I Saw Your HN Comment”
Read the original report → The summary and analysis above are GoKawiil's own, written from reporting by the source above. Facts and quotes belong to the original publisher.