Recently, I saw the L2 community start arguing again over TPS, fees, and subsidies—who's more attractive.

I'm the kind of person who gets itchy at the mention of "fast" and "cheap"...
So I’ll hold back for now, since I’m just an onlooker anyway.
I want to give myself a little brake: how do beginners actually assess a project's "credibility"?

Right now, I just glance at three things casually:
GitHub isn’t about looking at stars, it’s about seeing if someone has been working recently, or if it’s just one person self-congratulating with commits;
Don’t just look at the words “audited” in the audit report—flip to the conclusion and scope, see if there are high risks or mentions that “upgrade-related issues are out of scope”;
And for upgrade multi-signature, who can operate the contract, how many people can make decisions, and whether there’s a timelock (giving you time to escape).
To put it simply, running fast doesn’t mean you can brake...
I only trade with small positions for trial and error, so I don’t get carried away and think of myself as part of the ecosystem subsidy.