From the perspective of the financial institutions writing the paychecks, this feels like a pretty transparent regulatory arbitrage - it turns out it's lucrativ

From the perspective of the financial institutions writing the paychecks, this feels like a pretty transparent regulatory arbitrage - it turns out it's lucrative to find legal ways to say "invest your money with me and you'll get rich." As Matt Levine put it the other day [0]: > I … okay … so … some guy on TikTok is like “you’ll be a millionaire if you use Betterment” and Betterment was like “oh thanks, nice of you to say, here’s some money, keep saying that,” and he did, and … Mass Mutual gets in trouble for Keith Gill using Reddit under a pseudonym? For reference, Keith Gill aka /u/DeepFuckingValue was arguably the main player in turning GameStop into a meme stock, and he was a broker at a subsidiary of Mass Mutual at the time. Of course, as other commenters have pointed out, influencer is just a new class of celebrity. Arguably these folks are more productive than the likes of Paris Hilton or the Kardashians at the peak of their relevance, but the glorification of marketing is pretty concerning - I might prefer celebrities who are rich and famous for "no reason." [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-09-17/be-careful-with-your-financial-influence https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-09-17/be-car...