[karl-j]

I did not participate in the project, and I agree the seed is almost worthless to the world but I don't think the project was a waste of anything.

The minute inherent value of the answer is not why it was done. Finding the answer became personally valuable to people for a few reasons:

The unavailability made it seem more valuable. The idea of making something seemingly unknowable known is enticing. Making headway on a problem makes the solution personally valuable. The production, rhetoric, and appeals to nostalgia in Sal's first video about the project made it seem more valuable to many. Being part of a group who share an objective that matter to them is inherently valuable to humans.

I believe the project added value to the lives of everyone involved, and the experience gained and the connections made will add value to the rest of the world.

All of this could have been true for a project that actually matters, yes, but those projects tend to have high barriers to entry, consequences for failure, and distant horizons of success. I think this project replaced time and computing power that would have been spent on games and youtube, not on important problems.

[ganafagol]

You are probably right with your last paragraph. But that's what is so sad!