Lately, we've been talking about MEV, ordering, fairness, and so on. Basically, on-chain "cutting in line" doesn't hurt big players the most; it’s those who think that once they submit a transaction, it should be processed in order. You think you're queuing, but really you're in an auction: whoever pays more to the miner/node (or that bunch of relays in the middle) gets to go first. The rest end up paying slippage, worse prices, and more transaction fees—it's really frustrating.

I personally do aggregation/path optimization, squeezing every bit of fee down to the bone, but when I get caught in that squeeze, even saving a little gas feels like a joke... Even more ridiculous is that in chat groups, people are sharing rumors about stablecoin regulation, reserve audits, and de-pegging, and as soon as emotions run high, they want to "swap out quickly." At such times, it's easiest for someone to cut in line and be used as a liquidity withdrawal machine. The market never rewards confidence, especially if you're confident you'll be the first to run.

My colleague asked me yesterday, "Isn't on-chain transparency supposed to make things fair?" I paused: transparency doesn't equal fairness. At best, it shows you how you're being arranged. Anyway, now my order placement feels more like bargaining with the sorting system—don't rush, don't be careless. If you can split, split; if you can set a limit price, do that. That's how I handle it for now.