It’s like feeling as if you’re in the Always Sunny episode “The Gang Broke Dee”, wherein the gang go to great lengths to trick Dee into thinking that she is a successful and respected comedienne, only for them to reveal that it was all a charade to belittle her more.
I think that’s just called capitalism.
For an actual answer, I’d turn to the idiom of dangling a carrot which evokes the idea of an animal chasing a carrot being held out in front of it on a stick by its own rider, unable to reach the carrot since it moves forward as they do, but it swings momentarily towards them creating the illusion of progress, so they continue chasing it forward anyway.
Edit: not to be confused with the very similar sounding idiom of “carrot and stick” in which the stick implies punishment.
It is partially stemming from a capitalistic source.
Long personal vent linked here, feel free to ignore if you don’t care. Basically unless you’re a free therapist, you don’t have to read this.