> I'm beginning to suspect there's an in-joke with science / tech writers about strained analogies.

Which has been going on for longer than I've been alive. The idea (I assume) is to take a large number that's hard to conceive and turn it into something everyone can relate to.

But inevitably, they choose things that few can actually relate to, or things that are so vague/variable to be meaningless. It just adds more confusion all around.

It has to be an intentional joke.