Have to admit that I didn't read the entire Fred but I feel like throwing my two cents in anyway. IMHO this whole discussion is nonsense. I see ppl on one side complaining about everything, blogs, boards etc. since they want to keep all the knowledge to themselves.
On the other hand there are ppl like me who discovered this hobby just recently and value the great input one can get from the aforementioned blogs, boards. I wonder how the "keepers" got into this game in the first place. Did they all figure these methods out by themselves? Without stumbling upon it during an unrelated Google search? Unlikely!
Why do these same ppl who dread the board keep on posting every single day and inflate the number of posts and responses? This is why News outlets discover these Freds. You can read about MS on Fox business and everywhere. You can't reverse history. Many tried, never worked!
The way I see it the only terminal way to put a stop to MS is the financial institutions by cutting cashback rates or putting caps on their payouts. Ever wondered why Chase Freedom or Discover it are barely mentioned when it comes to MS? Or the Sallie Mae card - wonderful for "normal" ppl but useless for our intentions.
Also airlines could further devalue their loyalty/miles programs. But I'm almost positive that these guys make a lot of money from folks who can't play this game. There may be a couple thousand folks like us in the nation but there are millions who lose out on those deals and they're the ones paying our rewards dollars or miles with their sky-high fees and interest rates.
*cowering and waiting for the first stones to fly in*