Previously, new coins were launched with market makers, major media outlets, KOLs, speculators, and retail investors all working together to push the price up.

Now, the project team only needs to do one thing: go live.
The rest of the process is automatically handled—airdrops are instantly distributed, retail investors ignore them, those pushing the price help others lift the sedan chair, and those who run slowly stay at the mountain top.
From a certain perspective, it's not that no one is playing with altcoins anymore; it's that everyone has figured out how to play them properly.