The difference between a grift and a real coin seems to be kind of small. If you keep on developing and pushing the coin/project forever, it's not considered a grift.

It's only a grift once you stop it.

Not everyone though, e.g. Bitcoin maximalists. Even within the Ethereum community, there are many who are anti shitcoins, anti shit tokens, etc.

"I don't shill btc and attack everything else including fiat so that my net worth goes to the moon, no sir, I do it for other, non-profit-seeking motives. Getting wildly rich will just be an unfortunate byproduct of me following my moral code and various philosophies I recently adopted."