People really only started to collect any significant amounts only recently.
As I pointed out, initially people paid into it, but very few people lived to collect.
The point is, that as soon as people started to collect, the system was becoming more and more overstressed -- it went from 16 people paying in for each person collecting, to 2-3 people paying in for each one that is collecting.
The Ponzi scheme works for a while too.