>The overall suffusion of this [slop] into the broader scene rightly has the more sensitive of us up in arms. It's noise, it's spam, it's a perversion of the years of skill we've spent accruing.

I realized recently that slop is not worthless. It actually has negative value! Just think of the Android app store. There are gems there, to be sure, but the gems are washed away by the sea of slop.