"This changes everything"

I remember, that was the headline from all the bloggers when Bluebird was first widely publicized.

Will today's headlines be "This changes everything back"? I doubt it (not until the credit card companies cut off their referral fees - they'll all still be pushing their links and telling everyone how easy it is to game the system), although it sure does change a lot of things back.

The lessons one might draw from today's sad news...

When easy MS opportunities are endlessly flogged by blogs, openly discussed on FT, and you find LINES of other MSers waiting at your local WM or other outlet using the same techniques hyped by the bloggers and widely discussed everywhere...that opportunity is gonna close soon.

When you see entitled idiots bragging that they make a big stink at a store when a clerk challenges their perceived constitutional right to MS, when morons demand to argue with the manager, call the store or corporate asking for details on how to scam that company (or checking to see if it's OK if they do)...that opportunity is gonna close soon.

When you have a hundred ne'er-do-well bloggers whose six- figure incomes are derived entirely by convincing noobs that if they just follow their easy circles-and-arrows step-by-step guide, they too can easily fly their family to Bora Bora in first class, stay in 5-star resorts, and experience a vacation previously only available to the rich ("sleep in Richard Branson's Pajamas!"), all for nothing, with just a few trips to Walmart...that opportunity is gonna close soon.

If you think that all the credit card companies and other players in this game don't have access to the internet, don't see what you're doing, and won't lift a finger to stop their bleeding....well, you're an idiot.

It may come as a surprise, but the banks, credit card companies, airlines and other players in this game really do have access to the internet and have staff whose job is to stop all the exploits that we like to use. Try Googling Amex Serve or Bluebird and see what the search results are. If you worked for Amex's loss prevention team, and you knew how to use a web browser, what do you think you would do?

Is the Golden Age of MS over? I dunno. It might be. There are still some edge case opportunities, but the historic Great Golden Geese have just been killed. Remaining opportunities are (for most of us) much, much more complicated, limited, time-consuming, fragile, and inconvenient, not to mention way less valuable and increasingly fragile.

Of course, now, everyone is going to run to the next opportunity - like a swarm of locusts descending on some poor farmer's field to strip every living thing, the once that option dies, the swarm will move on and kill the next thing (driven by all the well-known bloggers, who fear that now they might have to go out and get a real job). An ever-increasing number of opportunists seeking to exploit a diminishing number of (increasingly fragile) options.

I'm sure the remaining opportunities will die soon enough, probably ever more quickly (what's the next big thing they're now promoting - fantasy sports leagues?).

Whatever the next big thing is, if you want that opportunity to last for more than a few weeks, you might want to think twice about how much public exposure you give that. The more widely known (and widely discussed) any exploit is, the faster it'll be killed. When there are a dozen step-by-step guides posted on one of them, start the death-clock.

But look on the bright side: you never have to set foot in a Walmart ever again. I'll count that among my blessings today.