"I don't pay to get rid of ads, so I get bottom-of-the-barrel scam products hoisted at me. This is AI's fault, somehow, and not how the web has worked since nearly its inception."
A comparatively few bad actors can have a disproportionate impact on the lives of many people. Prior to the internet we had https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_von_Braunhut, although that probably pales in comparison to Richard DeVos.
This type of real life grifting is stereotypical americana and it really hasn't been a known phenomena on this scale in the nordics.
I'm from Finland so most of these "get rich", "buy crappy products" schemes are solitary an internet phenomenon for me and many others.
I think the former is discouraged by the "Law of Jante" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante) and latter by consumer protection.
In that way it's similar to a lot of the AI scams now, not actually a risk for most people, just poluting the space in which they exist,