> perceived ability
In this case at least it's definitely more than that. Ever since LLMs became a thing, there has been a constant search to find it's "killer app". Given the steep rise in popularity, regardless of the problems, that is now OpenClaw. As they say, the proof's in the pudding; this guy has created something highly desirable by the many.
Yet, people are still asking for the usability of OpenClaw outside of marketing. It's a bit unclear how much of a "killer app" it really is, and how much is just burning money for the lulz and Bot RP. I personally also got the impression many people had their first AI-gateway experience with OpenClaw, and don't understand that those abilities have been around for a while now, but is located in the expensive LLMs which OpenClaw is using, not in OpenClaw itself. I've seen people thinking that OpenClaw is actually the AI.