I sometimes obsess about images like that. But then again, sometimes I don't. Eh...just depends on my mood I guess.
In many ways, hasn't this always been a problem of professional magazine writers? They go and research a topic (sometimes well, many times not so well) and then write a piece for the magazine about that topic. They are less than an amateur in the topic they are writing about usually, but they more or less pass it off.
I know, the internet makes it worse. With Google and now ChatGPT, we can all be good or bad magazine writers.
I have read and heard that many university professors often write papers for trade magazines with little reference material—then they get their grad students to go out and find sources to back up what they wrote. Pretending to have knowledge we don't happens at all levels.
I kind of don't mind if someone uses what I write. Such as when I post one of my haiku translations here on Hive; I'm ok if someone uses it elsewhere. That is how human knowledge spreads, after all. But then again, it annoys me when people pretend my things were made my them. That happens more often in photography and is one reason why I have started to watermark the photos I post online (well usually; I forgot in my post today). I've had to send more than a few angry emails to people who have tried to claim my photos as theirs over the years.
Anyway, I'm kind of dancing over what you wrote. Good food for thought.
I suspect the tap is closing, because what constitutes an influencer now is going to change, because skill is going to be important again.
Anything that makes the influencer go away, I'm good with!
Back in the day, a decent article would take months to write - now "journalists" propagate stories of celebrities, because only clicks matter, not impact.
It isn't about the borrowing of content or ideas, it is the passing of as expert/ skill when there is no experience at all. Watching a medical drama doesn't make a person a surgeon.
I used to watermark, but haven't for ages!! How I see it is, I have the originals and all the exif data to back it up.
What happened to the influencers who had pull because they offered the world something valuable?
When I think "influencers" I can only think the worst examples, such as from Instagram and Youtube. But you're right, there are probably good influencers too. I would tend to think the good ones will have the ability to roll with whatever it changes to in the future, whereas the bad ones will not have that ability and will disappear.