The Seller's Disguise: How Open Platforms Blur Intent

Most channels for public discourse share a peculiar vulnerability: participants can disguise themselves as genuine contributors while their actual motive is to sell — all under the premise of being “first-class citizens” in the conversation. What makes this worse is that the platforms themselves amplify the problem. Their algorithms promote “high-quality content” based on engagement signals, but engagement is completely agnostic to intent. A genuinely curious person sharing insights and a sophisticated seller performing curiosity produce nearly identical patterns. The platform can’t distinguish between them — and arguably doesn’t want to, since both drive metrics. Open platforms do enable free discussion, which is valuable. But since we can’t tap into people’s brains, we can’t verify intent. This inadvertent conflation of motives becomes a structural byproduct of openness itself. The result: the authentic self becomes increasingly hard to distinguish from the salesman disguised as the “no-fluff curious guy.” And over time, selection pressure favors the latter — curiosity-as-marketing has resources to sustain consistent output, while pure curiosity often doesn’t. We’ve built marketplaces that look like forums.