the hype with the projects that run through the TON ecosystem have died quickly. And sadly, its ecosystem and developers wasn't able to maintain the spot light for themselves because they thought that it would last longer but it did not.
That's what happens when you are not careful, and I am pretty sure that they were aware how quickly it would die down as well so that is why they rushed into it. Many projects made some profit from the hype at that period, but not to investors, it made money for the developers and project owners, investors and airdrop hunters ended up with basically nothing.
In the end, anything that is high just because of a simple hype is doomed to go down eventually, we can't make it work any other way, hype is the only way it survives and that is why I believe it has to be changing soon. We need to have a period where things are invested not to make money just today, but for years to come, when you do that, you can find real good projects.
Tap-taps were there like a quick grab - the people who lived long enough in the space knew that there wouldn't be a life-change due to them. Too many mouthes to feed, too few requirements to get onto the projects like that.