I will probably make myself unpopular again, but this is honestly how I see it.
I sometimes wonder what this space would look like if airdrop farmers simply did not exist.
A shocking amount of Web3 behaviour is built around the belief that people might receive something for doing almost nothing.
That belief is powerful enough to make grown adults spam, beg, fake activity, defend obvious garbage, join every pointless campaign, and turn themselves into free labour for teams that may never reward them.
It says something uncomfortable about the state of the space.
Was web3 supposed to attract who wanted better systems?
Instead, large parts of it now look like a waiting room full of people hoping the next exploitative incentive game finally pays them.
And the worst part is that teams know exactly how it works.
They design around it.
This project here made that mistake too.
Yes, it was connected to actual work, both for the team and for the airdrop hunters, but it ended exactly as expected: once there was nothing left to farm, almost none of them stayed.
I think it is slightly better when airdrops are tied to some kind of work, app usage, quests, or actual activity.
The purpose is usually still the same, but at least there is some effort behind it.
But the pure “drop your address”, “what’s your address”, “send me airdrop” crowd is unbearable.
It makes the whole space look cheap, desperate, and unserious. I also think it is one of the reasons normal new people stay away. ( 😄 😉 )
Imagine not being deep in crypto, opening your feed between animal videos, memes, and normal content, and suddenly seeing empty-headed accounts pretending to give away money while hundreds of others beg underneath like trained pigeons.
(I am not sure I would join this space either.)
And it is rooted so deeply in this space that most people do not even notice it anymore.
You can already see at the drama because $PUMP did not airdrop.
Yes, that is a dirty move from them.
But I find it both extremely amusing and extremely concerning that more people are angry about not getting free tokens than about what pumpfun has done to this space.
That tells you a lot about the current state of crypto.
The airdrop route for projects?
It may create activity, but most of that activity is not loyalty, community, belief, or demand....It is temporary extraction dressed up as participation.
