This was a trick implementors used when starting a new MUD too. If someone logged in and saw nobody else on the who list they would disconnect and never come back. Ideally you had at least the developers and a few testers committed to actually playing and then you’d pad those numbers with fake accounts or bots.

Almost every large online service started by using fake accounts or little to no rules. That is how you build a community. Get everyone to show up then slowly change the rules/playing field. Anyone remember that linkedin launched as a scam service?

Could you please link some reference to the linkedin stuff? Cannot find anything on google