No one trusts anyone easily anymore. There are real reasons for it.
We don’t trust the celebrities telling us to buy things. They are being paid by the company. We don’t trust tweets and instagram posts. They are new ways of getting paid.
We never trusted salesmen and marketers. Now we suspect them. By default, we reject them.
We don’t trust news anymore. They are vying for our attention and have biases. Who knows who is paying whom and with what intention?
We don’t trust companies peddling products and services anymore. They are after our money.
We don’t trust service professions like doctors or hospitals or schools and colleges anymore. They are in business.
We don’t trust institutions like NGOs or social service or religious organizations and charitable trusts anymore. They want donations.
We don’t trust good altruistic acts anymore. We need proof. There must be some agenda.
So we Google.
We look for other people like us who don’t trust anyone. Have they trusted this one? Has this thing earned other people’s trust? Are the other people themselves trustworthy?
We evaluate. Till we suspect that maybe this too cannot be trusted.
Trust is the rarest of attributes. There is a deficit of trust. Trust can only be earned. If you can earn trust, you earn credibility.