Most of us are indeed lonewolf in this industry; trusting our own hunches and price movement biases. There are people who shares their own “work” but due to differences with capital and risk tolerance, it won’t work that easily. Altcoin trading is still alive but the market in general became more unpredictable, so better choose ones who have better recoveries.
Sometimes there are group of people that pumps the price like a closed groups in Telegram, I haven't joined one but surely there are like social circles that do those kinds of things. It is going to be a pain in the ass though since usually they would share each other's profit in the end like "contribution earnings" so that no one's blamed in the end if their favored coins gone.
I had stopped altcoin trading long time ago just like I mentioned in your quoted part, but I am pretty sure that there are more skilled if not lucky traders that can take advantage of the altcoin's volatile nature.
For newbies its really better.if they could just buy bitcoin and other top so they can practice there trading skills on this coins and they will not get worried about if they might be scam since this coins are giants in the market. But I may not recommend him to go to telegram since there are so many scammers there. Much better if he stays on trading discussion and altcoin boards since he can learn a lot there.
It's usually the default coin anyway since it's like the safe way to go while they learn. Virtual trading could be the play as well, but the newbie should still learn the emotional discipline that many traders are missing these days.