I started playing a decade ago and it was easier then:

1. Things were cheaper - fancy decorations cost DC not EC, we had a true Bring Em Back with all dragons available and all decorations available at least once a year.

2. Events were cheaper too, it didn’t cost as much EC to get cool stuff.

3. If you spent money it was pocket change. I remember treating myself to an island theme when those came out (brand new content) for roughly $2-5 (can’t remember). The same (275 gem) bundle I treated myself to with the amount of money I could spend on a Tim Horton’s coffee is now $13. Not that I did that often anyways, but yeah you could drop some money on this game and get a lot of bang for your buck.

4. It’s a long time to play a game, and there was less content so you accomplished more and more bit by bit as level caps got raised and new dragons came out, etc.

I don’t even min/max and have never touched coin farming. My park is a menagerie of only 1-2 dragons per type.

People say the game is f2p now but it was much more f2p in the past since you could still accomplish a lot without grinding. Literally half the decorations available in this event I have a dozen of because they were pocket change in DC (wish I snagged more in hindsight since I didn’t know that’d change).

Now that the game is more grindy, I have a bigger park so I can kinda withstand the grind.