In my opinion, there were still a bunch of streamers and influencers who actually believed in the projects they were advertising and promoting, some even had a stake on those projects and they seemed to be genuinely disillusioned when those projects failed to gain followers or when the value of the native token when down to zero.
Though, I won't deny there were very nefarious streamers who literally used their own NFT game and token in order to scam their own audience, it was quite a wild thing to see unveiling on live.
What the internet learned back in the day about it is one should never just follow the instructions or financial advice from a party which have an interest in the project, basically a shill.
You're right, this served as a lesson for many not to believe much in the new technologies that come with today's developments, nobody likes to lose money , what remains after this after anger and lamentations is an incredible learning, now each thing that comes out from here on out I'm sure it will be very studied by many, and they would only take very low risks in case they could lose, it's difficult because in this world the majority wants to win, to be victorious, that desire to get money and have fun is what leads many to lose money , streamers at that time were the best job you could have , I think Everyone, even the worst, made money just by Promoting.