Lots of good discussion here... Just to answer
@Karea Ricardus D.'s question, I don't know about the past 10 years since I started game only 4 years ago (seriously only 3 years ago), it has definitely become difficult after covid hit. I'm a millennial and I can relate to most of the senior members here who have been through different eras.
I seriously started gaming in October 2019 and the first six months until Covid hit in March 2020, was the best time I've had in pick-up. I was not approaching seriously like how I have approached 1000s of girls with 3-5 girls every single day since then. I used to have AT LEAST one date every week. I banged (or went upto getting naked/bj etc) 21 girls in the first 6 months (most of them instadate or 30+ mins conversation + minimal texting since my text game is terrible). I had 100+ contacts (phone numbers/FB/IG). At one point I thought at this rate there is no fun. I think I was too hasty in thinking that. I'd think that's a good number for a beginner (although my friends call me a natural, I had zero knowledge about pickup and worse I didn't even know game existed).
What changed? I can't speak for everyone but just looking back one of the biggest reasons I can point to is 1). my neediness. When I started out, I had so many options that I was very cocky and it used to come across as confident. I think now I know what true confidence is. Yet, I struggle to fix my neediness. I don't think you can have an abundant mindset without having true abundance. Besides this main problem, the others things that affected me are:
2). Only thing I knew when I started was just to approach and the guy who introduced me to pickup was doing it for 5+ years and still thought I was doing good for a beginner with minimal approach anxiety. After sometime I started following Tom Torero (RIP) and his LDM model and it helped a lot. I didn't read or follow anything since in one of his podcasts he said don't follow many coaches even if you don't follow me (what a gem of a guy, truly miss him, Uncle Tom). Since April 2020 till now, I've banged 4 girls from daygame. I've had a few from social circle but I won't count them for the sake of this discussion. Since covid made getting results harder, I thought Tom's advice is not working, I should look for advice elsewhere and I've read every popular book on game and seduction. (Books from Mystery-MM, Rosh V, Gambler, a lot of articles on GC, Nick Notas, Reddit, Rollo Tomassi etc) watched a lot of videos on YouTube (rsd Tyler to Todd V to PWF to many more). I fucked up my mind with coupious amounts of seduction material which was not really needed. But I had so much time that I'd end up on one of these. So, I lost my natural abilities which girls can sense very easily when I'm super gamey.
3). Some of them have already mentioned about girls not coming out due to fear which is very true. I have an app for my city to track foot traffic in the CBD and I see it has remained almost same since covid started. It has come down by 70% since a lot of them work from home. So they don't need to come to the city center from suburbs.
4). Girls have gotten into relationships more than ever. I think they got into those relationships as a stop gap solution when covid hit but since it extended for such a long time, they've become comfortable in those relationships due to safety and security reasons. Girls used to go out more often for work or college in the past and competition with their friends would encourage them to breakup quite regularly and there were more girls in the market but now that they work and study from home, they don't have the urge to look out for new options. Also getting used to staying indoors have made them lazy and spend all of their waking time watching Netflix series or browsing social media. I know this cos I work from home too and I know about my hot female colleagues.
5). Online dating - I don't think much has changed here but it has definitely made it harder.
Girls are not getting laid online as much as guys think but they're getting their constant source of validation from the apps. So, they don't need to go out anymore. They've got used to it. One of my friend told me this and she is at best a 5 (sorry friend).
6). Constant announcements by govts about restrictions and panic has created a sense of fear in girls. So, they're not as easy to approach as it was before even if they aren't wearing masks. Their guard is up like girls in a night club. I've stopped approaching girls wearing masks completely. I was very good with indirect and indoors (where most of them wear masks) which was my bread and butter. But these days I'm only doing street game and the conversion rate is very bad for street game as you already know.
7). There are also no tourists and students that are coming to my city unlike in the past which is one of the major factors.
So, if the above things don't go back to how it was before, I think it is difficult and perhaps we have to find ways around it. (Maybe stalk her from her balcony lol)
BTW, I saw a few discussions about MM and his peacocking etc. It's one of the classic topics in every game forum. Leave the poor guy alone lol
We are talking about different generations and his game worked for his time and probably natural game wouldn't have worked then, who knows. Guys forget that game was refined over the years and those principles from people like him and others are the foundation stones of every guy that teaches pickup. I'm not a fan or anything but just found that comparison silly.
In general from what I've heard, game became increasingly difficult over the past 10 years with the advent of dating apps but from my experience it was a landslide after covid hit.