I haven't formally researched this but I'm pretty sure I'm right when I say it - the number of creative works that exist has absolutely exploded compared to the past. Even just compared to 30 or 40 years ago, there's exponentially more fiction written today (and more movies and TV shows made, and more music made). Compared to 100 or 150 years ago, the gap is titanic. And that absolutely has made it harder to get anyone to pay attention to your work, for reasons that have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with its quality.

Like, yes, absolutely, there are a lot of people out there who are shitty writers. But like... the state of writing things and trying to get people to read them is absolutely awful and terrible and rotten.