, Columnist
Paying for Popularity Can Be Fraud
Also ecosystems, frictions, fires and burgers.
The internet age has allowed the perfection of this particular fraud:
This is not a brand-new idea or anything, but two aspects of modern technology and finance are particularly convenient for it. First, you can now build valuable products—iPhone apps, cryptocurrencies, newsletters, etc.—at zero marginal cost, which makes this fraud much easier and more efficient to pull off: You can just give your buddy the money to buy your product and then sell it to him for that money, shuffling money in circles without having to spend any to build more products.