… I mean, charlatans are a fact of life, yes, but it doesn't need to be that way. We have laws against it. Prosecute people. The biggest problem AFAICT is othe

… I mean, charlatans are a fact of life, yes, but it doesn't need to be that way. We have laws against it. Prosecute people. The biggest problem AFAICT is other countries don't give a damn about fraud (as long as it isn't against their own), and, e.g., American phone companies continue to permit falsifying caller ID. The idea of capitalism is that a better product (i.e., one offering more utility/$) should win out. There are some … requirements for that, though, like a good flow of information, and that's hard in a marketplace where actors lie, fraudsters, but increasingly "legitimate" companies as well. We all see the stories from the FTC et al. where the enforcement penalty is paltry. I.e., the cost of doing business. Better consumer protections. But nobody cares about things like that, presently, as we're too busy having conniptions over far stupider things.