@Evan Prodromou I agree that's mostly what people mean. I feel annoyed with it, I guess maybe I feel how @Mike Linksvayer does about "model". Maybe "model" is worse, don't know.

Maybe the people talking about "at scale" are pointing to "scale" as a variable with intentionally no point, like a lazily evaluated infinite structure. In which case, I guess I'm the dumb one, huh?

But I doubt people are thinking that far ahead, and are just using buzzwords.