'trust me for $1000 and I'll send you $100 - here's my ripple address just give me yours' in a million email accounts every day.
How about no? How about I only trust people in ripple I do
actually trust?
Yeah ripple IOUs don't work - if you are purposefully missing the point.
Several hundred people on this forum trusted tradefortress for 100btc - the very fact that they are on this forum suggests that they at least understand enough to know that they shouldn't have - imagine that spreading out across the world to people who don't understand anything.
'hey man trust me for $100 and i'll give you a discount' - people will just do it - there's a $ sign in their account - why would they not believe the money is real?
I think the bitcoin newbie forum is the last place in the world where people actually would understand what trust means. The unique combination of greed and lack of knowledge is unprecedented.
TF knew this, that's why he started the scheme there. Most of the people involved didn't even know ripple.
You can say greed is an exploit for trust, in which case TF exploited human nature not ripple.
Edison electrocuted an elephant to show the dangers of AC power, and while he was correct it would kill the elephant we use AC over DC power all over the world now.