I thought the entire point of "interns" was to give young people (i.e. teenagers) the chance to work in a real company and get experience, usually over school holidays etc.

I think SV (and maybe modern capitalism) has corrupted the term "intern" to be "an excuse for us to not pay you" without the other benefits experienced by the "intern".

[EDIT] I should clarify that I am a Brit and never heard the term "intern" used outside of my above definition until I started reading US tech news where it seems to be applied to older people as well.