Absolutely didn't happen. You might occasionally credit a story in the NYT or WSJ using an anonymous source—but when one appears in a blog by a "serial entrepreneur active in the content industry," flogging a subscription product aimed at exactly the sort of marginally-employed writer targeted by the story, I would expect the average HN user to be slightly more critical of the claim.
My wife's fairly connected to the writing world and I've not heard of this being a thing at all. Doesn't mean it's not anywhere, but if it were widespread I think I'd have heard of it. Most companies are trying to push more use of AI tools in writing, as far as I can tell, and I don't even have insight into content-farm parts of the market, where I assume it's just all AI all the time now.
I've used LLMs for this as a sort of first draft. I edit the output but it's a perfectly serviceable way to get some words down and save me an hour or two.
If you needed to throw in a sentence or two ahout, e.g., what load balancing is, you're better off lifting a definition from an authoritative source than trying to come up with a "creative" rephrasing for its own sake. Standard terminology is standard because it works.
And the big middleman platforms siding with the client.
Some people prefer their anonymity, especially when they are put into the public sphere over disputes which can cost them future work. Notice the client wasn't named either.
This might be a bias-confirming fake anecdote, for sure. But the effect is real.