While I'm sympathetic to your view (status feels very "high school", and in some ways profoundly boring), I'd like to make a case for The Good Parts of status (as well it's bottom-up cousin, "prestige" [0]).
I can't remember where I read it (probably also Simler?), but I love the aphorism that "honor can sometimes buy gold, but gold can never buy honor". In addition to the fungible, zero-sum-ish resource economy, there is also a parallel non-zero-sum reputation economy. While this can sometimes be meritless and lacking in positive externalities (Instagram influencers, "being famous for being famous"), it can also manifest in incentivizing pro-social behavior (community contributions, GitHub stars).
Just as the same market mechanisms underlie both the good and bad parts of capitalism (wealth creation vs. rent-seeking), the motivation to climb status hierarchies and earn reputation is a double-edged sword, sometimes resulting in good behavior (competition to be the most cooperative), and sometimes in leveraging status exploitatively or even harmfully (searching for a term here; status arbitrage? status market failure?).
I can't remember where I read it (probably also Simler?), but I love the aphorism that "honor can sometimes buy gold, but gold can never buy honor". In addition to the fungible, zero-sum-ish resource economy, there is also a parallel non-zero-sum reputation economy. While this can sometimes be meritless and lacking in positive externalities (Instagram influencers, "being famous for being famous"), it can also manifest in incentivizing pro-social behavior (community contributions, GitHub stars).
Just as the same market mechanisms underlie both the good and bad parts of capitalism (wealth creation vs. rent-seeking), the motivation to climb status hierarchies and earn reputation is a double-edged sword, sometimes resulting in good behavior (competition to be the most cooperative), and sometimes in leveraging status exploitatively or even harmfully (searching for a term here; status arbitrage? status market failure?).
[0] https://meltingasphalt.com/social-status-down-the-rabbit-hol...