Scams are often described like bad weather. Unfortunate, external, unavoidable. That framing is convenient and false.
What we call “poison attacks” are not acts of nature. They are engineered behaviors exploiting known weaknesses in systems we design, deploy, and profit from. If an exploit can be repeated at scale, it is no longer a surprise. It is a design flaw left open.
An industry that can deliver millisecond latency, global uptime, and precision targeting does not get to plead helplessness against fraud patterns that reuse the same scripts, the same funnels, the same psychological levers. The gap is not capability. The gap is resolve.
The Cost of Tolerating Poison
Every scam that slips through does more than steal money. It corrodes trust.
Users do not compartmentalize harm. They do not say “the scammer hurt me, not the platform.” They feel betrayed by the environment that allowed the attack to reach them unchallenged.
This erosion compounds quietly. Trust is not lost in dramatic exits but in hesitation. Fewer clicks. Less engagement. More skepticism. Eventually, migration.