By friends he probably means "friends" aka alt accounts.
This is only a short-term solution for bad posters to rank up. Before long, they'll all be out of sMerit, and won't get any new ones unless they improve their post quality.
If I take a look at the
Bounties-board, barely anyone has earned any Merit. They may have 100, 250, 500 or 1000 Merit points, but none of them earned by their post quality. What's the use of a Legendary member posting "I'm in."?
After decaying unused sMerits in the future, it would be interesting if all accounts lose 1 Merit each Activity period. That would mean a Legendary shitposter suddenly turns into a Hero Member with 999 Merit.
Merits will never have a value
My signature campaign already announced to require all participants to have earned at least 10 Merits four weeks from now. That gives a (large) monetary value to Merit. Update: this won't be required yet.
Moving to merit is an awesome way for campaign managers to handle applications.
I've managed giveaway campaigns for over a year, and would have loved this feature! Fake Merits are easy to spot by checking the post it's given for.
Going through everyone's post history to determine if they're just giveaway abusing alt-accounts or real people is a lot more work.