They do, but then a trusted “insider” youtuber or podcaster who they have a years long parasocial relationship with “signs off” on the product and the person says to themselves, “X person has integrity and they are very smart, they wouldn’t put their name on Y unless they did a lot of homework, so I don’t have to.”

And life is difficult, complicated and overwhelming, so you can’t really blame “normal” folks for putting the same faith they’d put into their tech saavy nephew into these personalities. The influencers should pause though and accept that if they can’t enthusiastically describe the reason a thing is actually legitimate, they should refrain from endorsing it or accept part of the blame for misleading people.

Fuck PayPal and its related entities and all executives past, present and future. And I guess fuck you too now, Will Ferrell - you cosigned Mel Gibson in whatever the fuck that daddy movie series was and now you’re the face of these people? The “PayPal mafia” (cringe) literally just bought the US election. I know you need to bankroll a lot of family trips to Sweden, but you h ave too much obviously dirty money now, Will. Hard to chuckle at your comedies now, and that’s a bummer.