It's not that it ignored it ten years ago and stopped, it's that much of it didn't exist to the degree it does now, and there was a lot more content being made of different websites, so there were actual results to show.
Google Search went to shit, it's true, but have you tried the other ones? They're not much better.
We have to acknowledge the internet itself went to shit. There's simply less to find out there than there used to be, because the majority of all web content and discussions moved away from individual websites and forums and centralized on a few platforms. They can filter out the SEO junk, but what would they replace it with?