Yes, it appears to be mostly smoke and mirrors.
Ethereum is the home of decentralization principles, but it's APis and other infrastructure are a bit centralized, so those structures like Infura and other rather centralized structures are all going to be retooled for the Ether POS token, so regular investors will have quite a bit of trouble getting those tokens, and some think it's a scammy way to rip them off.
The world claims to be civilized, but that's just a facade, it's is a pretty dog eat dog world