system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5, why people make viruses?
gpt
For a lot of them, to make money. For example, many kinds of viruses load a screen as soon as you boot up that says something to the end of "You did something bad...your computer is locked....pay fine at this place to restore your computer" and users will "pay the fine" to get around it.

Some virus authors are simply sociopaths who enjoy inconveniencing and hurting other people.

And then the others are creating viruses irrevently (like NetGear's MrVGina.dll incident around 2007).