Very true. I am one of those speculators who got back into the mix thanks to these websites.
Heyyyyyy, I resemble those remarks. I got back into the hobby in Aug 2013. I thought variants were very cool and bought a lot of them. Now, I still speculate on moderns but I know enough to have Silver, Bronze and a little Copper in my collection and to not buy so many variants.
It's all a learning experience. Unfortunately, the "old guard" are pretty uppity when it comes to speculation.
Regardless of what people think about how others should spend THEIR OWN money, the hobby is just fine. In fact, some of the new collectors/speculators are the ones buying their Gold, Silver, Bronze and Copper so that they can buy that same book in a higher grade (speculation). It's still called speculation. Even "readers" aren't buying books to fold up and put it in their back pocket. Books are read very carefully so as not to cause any, or more, damage, speculating that the book will not decrease in "value". Speculation, Holmes.