[FactKnower69]

>I suspect the author is thinking back to more than ten years ago.

Yes, "good ol' days" types will always move the goalposts further and further back when you point out that things were exactly the same in the mythical time period they want to return to

[catlikesshrimp]

There were days when internet search engines had operators and really showed results, not "relevant" SEO.

Botnets weren't a thing, either.

[pavel_lishin]

But OP was talking about humans' behavior toward each other - I'll grant that SEO-spam maybe falls under that, but I don't think that Google's leadership fucking up search results is the same.