How I have come to view the situation, these members who were here before the merit system and before the forum was 'as popular' are partly the reason there's a forum for newer members to register later on.
I had not heard a thing of Bitcoin in 2010 thought to 2016, but yet users kept discussions going on here, donations, moderating, reporting many of such tasks which came with no reward.
Airdropped merits is sort of proof of the effort put in before a certain time and scrapping it out is an extreme action, imo.
I don't see it that way. Airdropping merits is a socialist measure that I don't know how an ancap like theymos implemented it. I guess he saw it as a lesser evil. What that measure does is equalize those who wrote good posts and those who wrote garbage.
Some would argue that there are tons of merit worthy posts made before the merit system which did not get any, cause it was not a thing.
Members went back to merit popular posts and members, but many more replies in random threads went without notice.
I don't know why they argue that. I have seen a lot of posts written before the system was introduced that have received merit.