[kirrent]

I agree! People who predicted QC soon over the last few decades should lose credibility. They were wrong and they were wrong for no good reason. There is a real opportunity cost to focusing on the wrong thing. There are definitely grifters in the space. Responsible QC researchers should call it out (e.g. Scott Aaronson).

But it doesn't necessarily follow that you can dismiss the actual underlying field. Within the last five years alone we've gone from the quantum supremacy experiment to multiple groups using multiple technologies to claim QEC code implementations with improved error rates over the underlying qubits. People don't have to be interested in these results, they are rather niche (a little community as you put it), but you shouldn't be uninterested and then write a presentation titled 'Why Quantum Cryptanalysis is Bollocks'.

[pclmulqdq]

Well, when the little community circles the wagons around the grifters instead of excising them, the rest of us get to ask questions about that community. The cold fusion community did the same thing for several decades, too.

And by the way, about 0.01% of the grifters in the QC space are getting called out right now.