> It is slowly fading away and being replaced by the capitalist "growth hacking" which I'm not sure is a lot different.

There's definitely a blurry line there. I'm not completely clear what "growth hacking" means, but I definitely think SEO crosses a line (basically hacking google's algorithm to mislead them and their customers). Even worse would be things like paying for fake traffic to drive up ad revenue. People generally understand there is a line between legitimate business and scamming people, even when greed/desperation drives them to bend the rules somewhat and rationalize it.