If you think promoting project without listing, is waste of time, then fine. Visit bounty section Where you’ll get lots of usdt, busd payment bounty! Such project will ensure your payment and you don't need to think about exchanges! but reward are low. Instead of that, if you investigate and join good project, then that could give you a lot after listing in future. Thats why project promote project even without listing on exchange
listing on exchanges will take time it depend on dev team priority, some of them even didnt put it on top priority and believe product developtment more important than everthing. if we met this kind projects, maybe participate and as future saving was good, we never know how this project will be . maybe scam or maybe give us huge reward. patience is the key if we want survive in crypto market.
Even with a smaller allocation, it's best if a project is immediately listed on an exchange, if it's been a long listing, we don't know the clarity later, sometimes we forget ourselves, let alone not monitor the progress of the news. but just yesterday there was a bounty that was paid in btc, and disbursed quickly maybe only a week after the end of the bounty