You are aboslutely right! But the problem I see is, that we teach our children from the first day of their life, that nothing they do is worth anything, unless they get praise for it. So we reduce the instrinsic motivation from the start.

And of course now we have billions of adults who think they're worthless, unless some stranger tells them they're not. It's sad. I'm planning to do a blogpost on the negative effects of praise in early childhood. (Please don't steal my idea ;) ) We need to be more sensitive for the negative influence of words, even if they are well-meaning. (But parents spanking their children also only want the best for them, so...)