I hope that sales of merits are very rare. But their sale is not surprising, now we sell everything, even upvotes for reddit can be bought on
upvotes.ioNow everything is for sale. Reddit, telegram is only a small part of what is sold. Soon they will learn how to sell merits without fear.
It is a pity, but you are right. Although if look from point of the economy, it is normal to sell votes or merits. If such method of increasing traffic is needed then why should not people make money? Probably someone will make service like upvotes.io for selling merits.