This is an important point, but it's worth noting that the relationship between social beliefs and personal benefit exists in countless other domains: company s

This is an important point, but it's worth noting that the relationship between social beliefs and personal benefit exists in countless other domains: company stock price, religious groups, political movements, adoption of a particular FOSS library/stack/protocol, etc. There are few people who have no stake in social ecosystems that are fragile to shifts in perception, and therefore to subject to perverse incentives in managing that perception.