Most beginners use forums just for money, I think the assumption is correct but I don't expect everyone to generalize to all beginners for money. Sometimes they just don't realize that knowledge is more important than money so it takes time to see the behavior change by itself.

Actually there are many ways to force beginners to change their habits besides the merit system and in my opinion limiting the rank of beginners in participating in the bounty is one option. But most managers won't apply this rule because they probably won't reach the extraordinary promotion target of the newbies especially for social media. This is one of the unresolved issues so far, but when the restrictive rules are put in place then I think the forum will succeed in suppressing the number of newbies who only have ask on the forum to make money.