This is a trend that happens a lot with bounty campaigns this days for blockchain projects, the truth is if a project doesn't meet its hardcap it is almost impossible to pay out the entirety of the bounty budget.
I think a change of approach should be adopted, projects should have a bounty budget that they will be capable of paying as long as the soft cap is reached.
This may mean a smaller budget but it also ensures hunters don't just join out of greed and spam repeatedly.
At the end everyone is happy
Reaching the softcap is the minimum for any project to continue its operation along with rewarding investors and bounty participants but at a lower amount compared to reaching the hardcap. So it's not entirely a waste of money and/or time. Most projects do reach their softcap which is good. The big question is, will their project be a success in the long run? If it does, then price and value will increase and will give the project a stable position in the crypto space even though it was only launched on a softcap.