On the one hand, there are responses like that describe this as bizarre and tone-deaf, accuse it of LLM levels of fake empathy, or say how if they were laid off they would absolutely despise getting such a message.
On the other hand, there are responses from people who actually received such messages when they were laid off saying how valuable and meaningful even a simple "sorry to hear the news" message was to them.
Though, at least as I post this, there aren't any responses describing being laid off and disliking such messages in practice, it's all hypothetical hate. Not entirely sure how to interpret that. Maybe they'll appear as more comments get posted.
There's a lot of layers here and many reasons why such strongly opposed sentiments might arise. It would be fascinating to get a better understanding of all this. Is it a personality thing? Is it a past experience thing? Is it from how a person views their relationship to work and their employer? How do these opinions distribute across the neurotypical/neurodivergent axis?
One detail that specifically interests me is this idea that wanting to offer condolences, but not automatically obligate oneself to anything beyond that seems to draw ire. Those expressing this opinion seem to be saying there is a clear, stark line for what constitutes "enough" that this approach clearly falls short of. But where that line is is going to be pretty strongly influenced by social convention, which not all people are not tuned into to the same degree, for a variety of reasons.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. Otherwise get sorted with the other parasites.
It is far from that simple. It takes understanding how people will read between the lines of what you say, seeking unsaid meaning where there was none. I fight this constantly in my life. It would be so, so much easier and simpler for me if I could just say what I mean and have others understand that.