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Comment by jalada | Hacker News Reader

Bitcoin, Groupon. Everything is a Ponzi scheme.

It seems like others didn't get what you're referring to but I do. Since yesterday the number of times the phrases "Ponzi scheme" and "pyramid scheme" were uttered has skyrocketed. Even in threads that have nothing to do with Groupon or Bitcoin you see people who must have been thinking along the lines of "wow I just learned about Ponzi schemes so I can totally see how X is also kind of like a Ponzi scheme." Then someone responds to that person saying "No it's really more of a pyramid scheme."

This actually happens on HN all the time. For example, once one or two people started talking about straw men[1] the entire site decided that anyone saying something they didn't agree with must have been beating up a straw man.[2]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

[2] http://www.google.com/search?q=%22straw+man%22+OR+strawman+O...

Other hot companies are clearly NOT Ponzi schemes, such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Zynga. Everything is not a Ponzi scheme, but some things are.

Sorry, sarcasm doesn't translate into a text box well; I'd never heard the term 'Ponzi scheme' until a few days ago and suddenly it's all over the front page of HN.

I agree with you, but you have to admit, U.S. dollars themselves are a bit of a Ponzi scheme.

While this is nearly true, it acts very slowly, and most people don't know how U.S. dollars work. Since everyone is robbed of some small value rather than a small group being robbed of all value, you can't expect people to notice.

Unfortunately most attempts to explain to the general public how U.S. dollars work contain other assertions that are plainly ridiculous (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXjoAP7jm6Y or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dmPchuXIXQ), and the more tame treatments of related issues lack depth (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTUY16CkS-k).

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