Yes. I also prefer using "altcoins". The problem with them is that they were historically clones of the Bitcoin codebase; this is why they are "alts." In 2017, tokens and tokenomics were born and close to the DeFi hype in 2020 the existence of clones-of-the-clones of ERC20 tokens and projects led to "shitcoin" term. It is justified but it is insanely hard to do such deep dive with random person.