Not all, there's some who are genuine, honest, sincere flakes. But mostly, its the money. Their audiences are willing to pay for information in print and online that confirms their suspicion that all the world's problems and tragedies can be traced back to a single bad guy or evil gang.

Its a lot easier than untangling all the connections and relationships and long history that make up reality. What gives them away is that when you press them, they invariably fall back on some conspiracy that is trying to "keep the truth from us", and they (the whistleblower), and only they, know what's really happening.

The world is full of these people: the Chariots of the Gods, the Bermuda Triangle, Atlantis, UFOs, Bigfoot, the Masons, the Bilderbergs, the Rothschilds, Area 51, the Reptile Overlords, the flouridators, the vaccinators, the Philadelphia Experimenters, the mercury in the dental appliances, the contrails and so on. Some, like Scientology, get very powerful and rich and dangerous. They are like self-fulfilling prophecies. Some are just sci-fi fairy tales and essentially harmless, others are political and racial slurs and potentially deadly. But they all seem to have one thing in common, some "elite" (governmental, corporate, religious or academic) which is desperately trying to hide the truth from us for some not too clear reason.

And unfortunately, there is just enough truth to this, it happens just often enough for real, that the story, or others like it, refuses to go die a natural death and go away. And alas, there are real conspiracies in the world, just not as many as we'd like to think.

Basically, people would rather believe they are being manipulated by a vast and powerful secret society than that they are victims of a simple con man or their own ignorance and fear.