I've been fascinated for a long time by how scams work, and perhaps the most revealing observation I've made is that the manipulation and deception involved is virtually *identical* to what the shadier side of the marketing industry (eg. microtransactions) does legally, the only difference is whether on paper you've gotten something for your money
Also, I want to emphasize that shady shit in the marketing industry is so widespread that "the shadier side" doesn't refer to just a few companies; it refers to the shadier side that almost *every single* company in the marketing space has, ethical companies are vanishingly rare and the whole industry is Like This
@joepie91 It's really eye-opening to talk to anyone who works in marketing. They're like lawyers, seeing the world entirely in terms of messaging, with no actual values of their own. This is why I teach my kid that all marketing is lying, without exception.
A separate but related point: the shittier companies are allowed to be, the more susceptible people will be to scams.
Because how do you expect people to distinguish between the scams that are state-sanctioned, and the ones that are not?