So many things are run this way, whole industries. The industry that feeds writers to late night tv was fed by theaters in a few cities that were basically pyramid schemes. People wanting to take comedy classes, acting and writing, pay and it looks like the better you get at it the more you get given stage time. You take classes to get stage time, but their are literal trust-fund kids (as in billionaires actually) who can buy their way and afford to live in the cities while doing nothing but honing the craft. The theater's expenses are basically paid by the shlubs who think it's a meritocracy when they're really subisizing a finishing school for ivy league rich kids. Casting directors run classes, and if you take the classes they send you commercial auditions. and then you hear about the charities they are raising (mostly other people's) money for. You want to be with the in crowd right? Kick in. Broke people need not apply, but must figure it out on their own. No one includes in the story of their own success all the money they spent or where they got it from.

It would make sense that in a world where every institution is corrupt, that money is the 'magic' behind it all, and the pay-to-play pyramid schem-ization of everything puts well connected incompetent monsters (satanists even) where compassion and humility and expertise is needed. Instead of an eye with a square and a compass, they need a picture of the earth in a handbasket on its way to hell as its symbol.

I will check in when I finish it.