This is getting to the antivirus bundle level of adding pointless features. I want grammarly to... check my grammar. I don't want it to write for me or suggest things.
That's not how it works today.
No sepulcator company gets profitable by shipping just a sepulcator. A sepulcator absolutely must have AI, monthly subscription, cloud services and - up until recently - has to be blockchain-based.
Basically, a significant portion of the population doesn't like writing or isn't good at it and really wants a "get it done" button. I might not love it, but the market is there.
So Grammarly is addressing a very real need. Further, it's really the only way for them to stay relevant, because you're getting AI editing / writing features in Gmail, Docs, Office 365, etc.
To me it is exactly why this move doesn't make sense.
Why would I use Grammarly/Superhuman for writing with LLM assistance, when I have an out-of-box alternative that, at worst, is equal?
They can't even compete with pricing, because they need to use their competitor models
I think the answer is basically that they have brand recognition and they're trying to ride it. Right now, they have two bad choices: become irrelevant more quickly by having a product that's inferior to built-in LLM tools, or become irrelevant more slowly by having a tool that's comparable (and also works anywhere on the internet, not just on specific websites).
They are a feature, not a company, with my apologies to Jobs. To your point, software and tools with native writing functionality can incorporate their own LLM support, as can native apps on mobile and desktop. Anything local will eventually be on device imho as model efficiency improves, or perhaps in browser (if not making API calls).
I did write for a while for a tech site that had some Wordpress add-on that was oriented to making my writing, I guess, more friendly to an 8th grade level. I ignored it.
ADDED: Because it would make the writing friendlier to more people.
I agree about the authentic voice. At one point, I got pretty unhappy with a fairly junior editor's changes to something I wrote. I was just going to let it go but my manager took it up with the editor's manager in the vein of "this isn't acceptable."