Same. Watched some streams and found myself listening distractedly while staring at a window with nothing happening. It is, perhaps unfortunately, plenty of time to reflect on why, and to ask whether this is desirable.

The worst example of this accidental mistreatment (in my personal experience) was the idle game The Idle Class. From the genre and the title, you'd figure you can just leave it running, and come back whenever. But the dev added e-mail events that give a huge bonus if you catch them within thirty seconds. I cannot overstate - that is a Skinner box. That is operant conditioning on a random schedule. It's how brains develop obsessive habits, and eventually, superstitions.

Now that everyone's been exposed to real-money video games and at least acknowledges some of their tactics are criminal, we should all be mindful of how software influences people. Problems don't need to be malicious or complex. Reliable incentives over time are profoundly influential.

I'd rather not discourage consistent use, either. One valid purpose for modifying the rate could be soft botting prevention. Instead of handing people CAPTCHAs, just string them out on 40 seconds, 50 seconds, etc., as suspicion dictates.

What'd be great - and what I think would prevent some botting - is an official queue function. When I was filling in teal for half an hour at a time, I would have preferred to click a few spots in a row and let my browser do them for me. Automating an entire image would be ruinous. That's just a bot war waiting to happen. But if I could leave a dozen pixels floating, at any given time, I wouldn't give a damn when the timer says they'll get placed.