SEO was stupidly great, now it’s “just” great

Here are two ideas that can be true at the same time: SEO offers worse returns than it used to. SEO is still one of the best marketing channels. SEO has historically been such a stupidly lucrative marketing channel that even today, during AI search Armageddon, SEO is still the best marketing channel at your disposal.
But SEO really has changed:

SERPs are drowning in AI-generated content.

Google’s algorithms seem biased towards big brands like Reddit.