This is true of many other virtues, too -- the returns to being a good person are, in general, pretty high; and even higher at the margin, e.g., people are so hungry for kindness and thoughtfulness that even small investments pay off for years.  And yet, somehow, the alpha remains un-harvested.

elvismercury

bitcoin

Digital forgeries are hard

> it's more that forging documents is really difficult to do well

I think this is the right take. Paper forgeries are not at all easy to do well either, and mostly are only meant to stand up to fairly cursory scrutiny. We *assume* that digital forgeries would be easier than paper ones, and maybe they are to make, but under scrutiny their flaws can be detected too.

One of the many virtues contained in the moral maxim "Honesty is the best policy" is that honesty is a lot less work. Fabricating and maintaining lies is a lot of (misplaced) effort. Which also, sadly, can require a lot of effort from others to dispel and debunk.