It's not such a crazy conspiracy... Those of us who were on the subreddit /r/bitcoin in mid-2015 received mass spam messages from Ethereum bagholders, telling us about this new and upcoming smart contract currency. When Reddit admins were asked about why/how they were allowing these weekly messages, they looked the other way. Since then, nobody's even talked about it.
It's ultimately something to just accept about Ethereum and the world in general. People with money use that money to make more money, and all people without money can do is hope to join the right team at the right time.