Lvl 8 is NOT challenging, it can be reached within an hour or faster. Even in not that super dense city areas.
For every lvl above that you need extra badges, which requires at least some work and maybe makes you contact your local community if youre a new player.
And a good contact to your community usually keeps you in the game. Not endless grinding and tasks.
In my eyes this will probably lead to more more secondary accounts and spoofers .