When I was beginning it seemed immaterial to you that I had no SP or Rep.

Yes, and it wasn't even a 'smart longterm investment' or anything shrewd like that. I'm just genuinely drawn to good content.

Never heard of it before that!

Nor had I! I thought I would need to study each tiny discipline-branch that touches on this topic myself, and then I discovered it was already neatly organized into a single field that draws from all these disparate disciplines.