Some omniscient people may want help you, save you, prevent you, deter you from pursuing your dream so that you will not be disappointed, defeated, crushed, or possibly successful where they were or were not. Some not to sharp people will do the same. Some people will provide accurate information of their experience and let you take responsibility for your decision. Some people who tried something and failed will advise you that it doesn't work. How would they know? They failed. If it is a simple thing or is some what obvious, common knowledge, you may want to listen ie. don't slam your finger in a car door, it i will hurt. Many people can talk about the car door because they have experienced or seen the event and consequences or the results appear to be obvious. They only know what they did or didn't achieve and they can then extrapolate that the results will be the same for everyone. Perhaps they read a book or have great info from social media therefore they know or have expertise in the matter or not. I don't know if pumping provides long term gains, I think it could if you do it for a long enough period of time. I have never tried any devices for a long enough time to know how well they work. Manual exercises and stretching worked for me, took years, with no progress in the first 6 months. So if someone does not like the process it may be difficult to stick with the program long enough to achieve results. For whatever reason I wanted to find out if the exercises/stretching worked or not. I had seen ads making claims and did not know what to believe or think. Other than, I am not usually dazzled by advertising. I had no goal or expectation other than to see if I could measure an increase is size. So the question becomes how long do you have to do something before you determine it does not work or you cannot do it. Interesting issue. So far the results seem permanent however I still do work on the unit regularly so perhaps if I stopped it would shrink up, I don't think it will. It is a way of life.