In my experience this is completely wrong. In my experience, the more work you do, you're awarded with more work. Companies require you to continuously grow, and chase for promotion. If you're better, then you need to grow better too. If you're average, but cut the minimum, then you're asked to grow averagely too. In my experience, there is such a thing as being too good at your job such that your employer keeps asking exponentially more and more from you.
This has some truth to it. I've seen colleagues do the bare minimum , and they may not get paid a lot less than me, but they also don't get the interesting projects.
The other side of this is that interesting projects have a higher inherent risk, it needs to prove that the investment was worth it, if you picked the wrong "interesting project" you will be part of cost-cutting measures when that project doesn't pan out.
I used to be a lot more interested in working on "interesting projects", over time I realised it's not that worth it most of times. I might have some more fun and challenge for a while when it's a greenfield but after that it all devolves to the same-same: it's maintenance, it's an ever expanding scope to gobble more features, it's redesign, it's management deciding the project is not worth it. Rinse and repeat, after 20+ years you really get jaded, why bother if it all eventually devolves to the same state?