Humanity has been playing the negative sum game with Nature since civilization. In a post-collapse society, innovation will require positive contribution to resources. Example: When 1st generation cut and run farming depleted the eastern soils of the colonies, the next generation of immigrants had to learn conservation practices to rebuilt fertility and stability. The present state of corporatized 'cropping' of ideas will be forced to accept that most of those ideas and products are useless to subsistence in the future. Extraction (colonialism) is only profitable when there are (saleable) resources left to extract and rich enough customers to deceive. There is a surfeit of cash and credit right now that was extracted from promises and borrowers with no clue to actual costs.

The "cheating" that worked until now is being extended by eliminating remaining friction from regulatory systems that have been ineffective, but now are nonexistent. The cheaters will perhaps find that discharged regulators are pretty effective cheaters, too.