Unpopular opinion: not every points system becomes grass.io and that’s okay

Everyone keeps comparing every new project to grass and I get it but let’s be real for a second, grass worked because there was actual demand for residential proxies, most of these “earn while you X” projects don’t have that underlying utility.

that said, i’ve been looking at the depin space more carefully because some of these actually make sense, there’s one that caught my attention called rumi where you earn for streaming content, sounds gimmicky at first but here’s why it might actually have legs:

AI companies need massive amounts of viewing data to train recommendation models and understand content, netflix and youtube hoard this data, a decentralized alternative where users get compensated could have real b2b demand ESPECIALLY with the a16z backing which suggests they see the business model working.

But here’s my skepticism; the points could just be points forever, or the token could launch and be worthless or adoption never happens we’ve seen this movie before with projects that had good ideas but terrible execution (Pi Network, ETN, Sweat….)

what separates potential winners from losers in this space:

• real b2b customers (not just users hoping for airdrops)
• credible backing from VCs who understand the market
• actual technical infrastructure being built
• no investment required so network effects can scale

I’m not saying ape into everything that looks like grass, most will fail, but the ones with real utility and backing might be worth being early to, even if there’s no guarantee.

Where do you guys draw the line between cautious optimism and just being a degen?