Grammarly's blurry boxing are trying to shame me into paying
I started writing blogs more than a decade ago. For me, the idea was to experiment with English, which is my third language, and get better at writing it. Even after a decade in professional writing, I don’t claim to that I spit words smoothly. I still make errors and typos.
For a large part of my writing career, I have relied a lot of spellcheckers of different kinds to guide me through mistakes. Of the various tools I have used, Grammarly has been one of the constant ones. Largely, because it integrates with most writing interfaces easily. That means I don’t have to look for built-in spellcheck tools in different apps.
Lately, Grammarly has been very annoying. The red lines below words and phrases are still fine because they tell me where I am going wrong. But now the app is also displaying yellow lines to show “Pro suggestions” for writing. I did try Grammarly Pro for a bit to understand if those suggestions made my writing drastically better. But that’s not always the case.
When I write for a specific type of news story or a feature, the tone and flow depend on the subject. I can’t possibly have Grammarly understand that particular nuance. So those Pro suggestions might not help me in all cases.
The yellow lines were still fine. But Grammarly has started displaying blurry boxes to hide suggestions under those yellow lines to entice you into buying the premium subscription. You do get one free “Pro” suggestion per day. But once you avail that, you will see blurry boxes.
It’s almost as if Grammarly is trying to shame you into becoming a paid user. The box almost screams, “I don’t think what you wrote is good, use our AI to be better.”
Grammarly is not immune to the generative AI wave, and has made changes to its product and company structure (read: layoffs) to adapt to the new world. The AI-powered Pro suggestions feel forceful. The company launched a feature to have its AI understand your writing tone and display suggestions accordingly in 2023. But that’s a paid-only feature.
In a world where feature launches are accelerated through AI, growth hacks are almost an expected outcome. But shaming users into becoming a subscriber is irksome, especially when I would be potentially willing to pay if I see a value. All I see right now is coercion and forced gamification.