> transmission-poor
You're insulting their communication skill, but some (I'd say possibly many) people actually enjoy reading/listening to this kind of communication. I actually really enjoyed it and found it funny and witty, and satisfying especially because it made me google for ~30sec to find out about Thucydides and Melos to be able to decode "old Melian", and then more to solve the puzzle of the "Piper" - although native Enlish speakers are more familiar with the The Pied Piper of Hamelin I'd guess or at least with the "pay the piper" expression.
I actually find regular low-density conversations excruciatingly boring so tuning the density way up and sprinkling some puzzles in there improves my ability to focus and not tune out as I do in many conversations. It's a form of communications that helps AHDHed-techno-creatives like us follow and enjoy conversation and reading more actually, not transmission-poor but on the contrary more like transmission-enhanced, but probably only for a subset of people with brains wired a particular way. (Now that I think about it, even the sci-fi literature that I enjoy reading, eg. Charlie Stross, Vernor Vinge is a bit like this comment, although way more diluted probably to appeal to a greater audience... and yeah, I guess conspiracy theories are the lower end trash version of "sci-fi appealing to ADHDed-techno-creatives", so it kind of makes sense.)
...come to think about it, I'd pay an arm and leg for access to a news outlet that would summarize latest news in this writing or talking style + a subtle injection of dark humor into it, and I'm probably not the only one! ...I imagine it with a Tom Lehrer background intro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frAEmhqdLFs :)