On a second thought we might both be right though. Progression in early worlds is pretty different, we're all discovering new things, buying new skills, exploring new places, changing equipment from fur to leather to steel etc, finally beating boars and bears, and even quality is meaningful bc it makes a lot of difference to go from a q20 to a q40 saw.
So maybe we end up associating grinding with dopamine reward in the early game, but then we keep reproducing that behavior in the late game just because it became a habit. But who knows, man.