This is basically a repeat of SEO.<p>At first, you have the early adopters. Things grow organically and it doesn't feel like a zero-sum game because there aren't many players.<p>Next comes the growth phase, where more people get involved, and start competing for attention/clicks/votes/whatever points system.<p>Next comes the exploiters, who discover weaknesses in the system and take advantage of them. They tend to make a lot of money because there's not much competition in this niche.<p>Next comes the crossover, where the exploit knowledge becomes public, and everyone now must do it because everyone else is.<p>Next comes the shutout, where the company running things starts actively punishing bad actors, but by this time, being a bad actor is essential to survival, so people do it anyway. It becomes a game of cat-and-mouse, new exploits, new mitigations.<p>Eventually, the company manages to fix their algorithms enough that the exploits don't offer decent marginal returns anymore, and it returns to what the company originally intended: 1% of people are successful, 99% of people make next to nothing, and the company makes shitloads.<p>And then the new big thing comes out. The old system goes into decline and the new system starts to take over. Rinse and repeat.