Tell about this to those who send merit to the posts of Satoshi, Lauda, Hal, etc. Their accounts have not been active for a long time and they do not distribute anything to anyone, but this does not prevent users from sending merit to their posts.
Satoshi and Hal were not here when the system got introduced. They don't know or care about it. But that does not diminish the value of their posts and their contribution to Bitcoin overall. Lauda was here and he/she was part of the system. He/she received and sent merits to others. I have no problem meriting an old post of Lauda, but since that user is no longer with us, that won't happen that often simply because I won't come across them anymore. Except when browsing through some old threads.