What percentage are you talking about as being abysmal. 0.1% offered at some shitty brick and mortar bank is terrible but nearly all the online first banks offer (or offered before covid) what I thought was a decent 1-3%
You might be able to scrounge up a few basis points somewhere if you're really determined and/or willing to meet some requirements. Still, even with our low-inflation these days [1], you're actually losing money in these savings accounts.
Main point though is that it's more of a relative game vs your ROI elsewhere. Even indexes and ETFs that are reasonably "low-risk" are routinely returning much more these days, and of course over the long haul equity markets still beat this handily, even when smoothed for downturns.
[0] https://www.bankrate.com/banking/savings/rates/
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/244983/projected-inflati...
It is funny though that they give the example that at $5,000 saved your effective APY is around 2.79%. I mean, the bottom line is that as soon as you get above $3K, any additional savings drops to a lowly 1%, which doesn't keep pace with inflation (i.e. you're losing money). But they're presenting it like 2.79% is some kind of average that matters, thus implying it's a good idea to keep pouring money in.
The reality is that the offer is not an average, but two discrete terms of 4% and 1%. And, on the latter, you're trading whatever other returns you could've made elsewhere for that miserly 1%. Much better to put it elsewhere, even for those who bite on the initial $3K for 4%.