You don't understand the situation it's why you say it's nothing. Plenty of context in which it is valuable. If you play the game you should understand when that 80 is valuable and when it is not, if you think it isn't valuable 100% of the time then you need to play some more.
It is a trick advertisers use.
For example saying a burger is 2.5% off means nothing...
But "Buy this burger and earn 200 travel points!" suddenly it sounds like a huge freeken deal. (by the by this is a real life example)
The number is large... But you are dealing with inflation. It means just as much at the end of the game as it did near the start.
Which is basically what is happening here. "No the 4% isn't small because that is 80 points! and 80 points is a large number!"
