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IMO this is a good opportunity for them to learn how a scam works before they go out in the real world with real money and really get taken for a ride. Everyone falls for a scam at some point in their life, better to learn early with minimal loss of money.
In the bigger context of how much money people lose in more sophisticated schemes, $150 is really cheap for such an important life lesson to learn.
It's interesting how prone the major social networks seem to be to outright scams. You can find plenty of cult leaders and fake cancer treatments on YouTube, Holocaust denial material on Reddit, etc. Of course those companies have every right to keep that material up, but it's strange how those scams are tolerated when other stuff is taken down. The pure scale of it all probably makes those scams more effective than…
But maybe there is a positive side to this... 50 years ago this scam would have been targeted at middle aged people, in the prime of their scam detecting abilities. These gen-z kids are getting hit with this stuff earlier, but will possibly spend more of their lives as savy, post scammed individuals. So the exposure leads to greater societal intelligence. And because the scam is aimed at the young, the amount of mone…
It seems like they're putting THIS IS A PYRAMID SCHEME on top and people are still buying into it. (Admittedly, pyramid schemes usually do work if you're the one starting them and you don't get caught. It's also nice to see someone starting a pyramid scheme that doesn't involve blockchains for a change :) ) One thing that makes me skeptical about this post is talking about "sweeping instagram" in the title and "hype"…
The problem is that pyramid schemes need to be stopped ASAP to limit the damage they do.
Normally in a ponzi there is a pretense of a business that you are funding and so you can really empathize with those who were fooled, but no one is being fooled here. They know the risks. This is a ponzi game, not a ponzi. It's social gambling.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the bigger context of how much money people lose in more sophisticated schemes, $150 is really cheap for such an important life lesson to learn.
Sounds to me like you've never experienced poverty
They know it is zero sum and they are investing with the expectation of profit, yet the only way they can profit is if someone else loses, so how much empathy should we exercise here? An amount equal to the amount they exercised sounds fair to me.
Had they lost money in a _deceptive_ ponzi I would have pity.
Meanwhile Gen Y are playing with cryptocoins. Gen X are sitting on stock. And everyone older is collecting a pension.
How does the scam author profit? Seems like all the funds 4x150 = 1200 get distributed back into the network.
8x150. Presumably the originators were on multiple such pyramids. And if they're smart then they won't pay out $150 to anyone, just start a new one. Or maybe start themselves in the middle of one.
* When were these kids educated about pyramid schemes and other scams? When were they taught the patterns to look for?
* Who is responsible for teaching them? Most of you will say "Parents", but are they equipped to understand and teach?
The old cliche is Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it but who is responsible for teaching that history?
And it's not just this scam. It's all over Cryptotokens right now. It's in our free-to-play games. It's MLM. It's the house-as-an-investment because "housing will never go down". It's thinking you're "Smart Money" so long as you aren't the bagholder. And for the first few entrants, these tactics really do work.
This pattern of economic exploitation is old. Instead lets educate as many people we know about the warning signs. It's especially important to teach kids as they have no prior experience to guide them.
Everybody is stupid until we are properly taught, or burned. Maybe somebody will warn you against a "hot new thing" that's hypnotized your attention.