It's assuming that "a pixel is a point sample" is a better model, even of pixel art, than "a pixel is literally a small square". Checkerboard patterns are also

It's assuming that "a pixel is a point sample" is a better model, even of pixel art, than "a pixel is literally a small square". Checkerboard patterns are also used quite often for simple dithering (in pixel art with smaller-palettes) which is perhaps the polar opposite of your example! (And if you really don't want blurring, most pixel-art-specific scaling algorithms will nicely match nearest neighbor on that particular pattern, while still doing their best to smooth out "jaggies" elsewhere.)