I just switched to a small coin on the chain and almost got "cut in line" and educated... I was using a normal slippage, watching the transaction go through okay, but then I compared the order in the block—someone else had already taken the liquidity first, and I ended up accepting a worse price. Not only did I lose profit, but the transaction fee felt more like paying tolls.

To put it simply, this MEV sorting game doesn't just affect "smart money"; it mostly impacts retail traders like me who just click casually: even on the same chain, the queue depends on who they look at face-to-face.

Recently, new L1/L2s have been offering incentives to attract TVL, and when old users complain about "mining, selling, and dumping," I thought it was exaggerated. Today, I got a bit scared: if I keep making a few more trades recklessly, I might just be providing liquidity and paying fees for others.
Anyway, in the future, I’ll try to split large transactions into smaller batches and avoid chasing hot pools, even if it’s slower—at least I won’t get cut in line and start questioning life.