alt Hacker NewsAgree, people became extremely pedantic with words and it's incorrect to assume they only mean what is described in a dictionary, as if we are in a court.
Language is fluid, and many of words got their very known & popular meanings later, when people used for things that it didn't exactly mean what it was initially intended to, and it got popular.
People are ever less empathetic and sociable, this being the reason for such comments.
People become pedantic when it's the only way to defend themselves and their friends or to argue against someone.
In this case dotcom investing was so stupid that it should have been recognized as stupid at the time, without hindsight. For someone who lost money, gave bad advice etc. insisting that they didn't fall for a Ponzi scheme means representing themselves as less terrible investors, regardless of facts.