Is it worth exhausting yourself for a whole day just for a badge and points? I admit the dopamine rush from grinding tasks can be pretty heady, but let’s be honest: a lot of social mining is really just selling a “sense of identity.” You go through emoji-and-meme interactions, do your check-in, and forward posts—only to find that you’ve merely become an active user in a dataset. Recently, Layer2 has still been going back and forth about TPS, fees, and subsidies, arguing like it’s a marketplace. But underneath, it’s pretty much the same: using metrics and rewards to keep attention tied down.

My approach is pretty blunt: I only pick products that I can use conveniently right away, treat points as freebies—not as the goal. And if I really am going to spend time, I ask one question: can this “identity” later be exchanged for a lower-cost or more stable user experience? If not, then I just let it go.