IM world the next 5 years?

I remember back in 2009 when I had more time to learn and try different methods and different strategies. I remember how easy FB marketing was in 2010/2011 in terms of ads approval and wide range of ads variations. Some people made a killing in dating niches (and some still do but big players mainly).

Paid traffic was very cheap and SEO services,too (compared with the nowadays situation)

Somewhere after 2011 I quit AM and IM at all because I began something in completely different direction. In the beginning of 2015 I had to do a FB campaign for a client of mine (offline business) and when I read the terms of services and guide lines I was surprised how restricted FB become - first they rejected our lead page 3 times, it was very hard to reach them for more information. We fixed the issue (not enough text on the main page and poor user experience), but I noticed the clicks are a bit pricey now. I know 5 years is very long time but it seems they try to push away the small marketer away - the same with google. No dating offers ?!

And google - long tail keyword in not mainstream market above $2-$3? What?!
Back that in was comfortable to test even with a small budget. But now I see mainly whales profiting.

Article marketing is dead like Latin ..

Don't get me wrong. It is just a bit of a shock for me when I kinda like to come back now.. but I feel it is more hard than ever.

I mean literally it is flooded. Markets are so saturated that you have to have a BIG budget and hard bal** just to try. At least this is the way I see it - it is not ok to do IM as an "amateur" any more. May be amateur is not the right word but you get the point.

And buy the way, my biggest amazement is that the most quality information and the best IM courses which really delivered information was from the 2010-2012 range. When I try to reach information even in forums 90% of the time I'm sales pitched. Off course this was the same back than but I think there was more support and marketers really helped each other.

The fakes are so much that it is hard for a newbie to connect the dots, even though everything is still available..

So guys, sorry about the long post. Just it is a pain to see how things are going forward. May be it is just my angle.. I don't know. What do you think.. what is the trend - where the IM world is going to be in the next 5 years. I think it is quite difficult though there is more info than ever..