In the beginning SEO was easy but now it is hard, so hard that doing SEO actually forces you to make good websites. I have worked in a startup and we have talked at length with SEO experts and lots of things that you do knowdays to improve your result is actually good stuff, adding good metadata, writting storys that actually capture peoples attention.

Sure with enougth money you can still hire tons of people who spam you all over the internet.

So it seams to me that because google search is so good, it forces people to actually make better websites.