These content spinning techniques were once widely used in SEO search engine spam. Back then, it worked because Google couldn't spot that they were the same text with synonyms. Presumably whatever anti-plagiarism software journals are using today is similarly limited.
The motivations appear similar too. If you make academic success dependent on an artificial measure like publishing volume (or search ranking for SEO), people are going to try to game the system.
The motivations appear similar too. If you make academic success dependent on an artificial measure like publishing volume (or search ranking for SEO), people are going to try to game the system.