I don't think the claim is that altruism doesn't exist. Rather, it's that at the margin large contributors are prone to use charity for their own goals. As EA attempts to monetize 'whales', it's pushed to twist itself into something that serves those goals, which in turn changes how good your own, smaller donations are.
It's a 'at the margin' argument, and I don't know how accurate it is. Maybe EA orgs are currently resistant to such processes. OTOH, the ones that are less resistant will be more appealing to big money, get bigger budgets, become more visible, and likely be copied. Seems unstable long-term.
I don't think the claim is that altruism doesn't exist. Rather, it's that at the margin large contributors are prone to use charity for their own goals. As EA attempts to monetize 'whales', it's pushed to twist itself into something that serves those goals, which in turn changes how good your own, smaller donations are.
It's a 'at the margin' argument, and I don't know how accurate it is. Maybe EA orgs are currently resistant to such processes. OTOH, the ones that are less resistant will be more appealing to big money, get bigger budgets, become more visible, and likely be copied. Seems unstable long-term.