Ask HN: Is SEO still a thing in 2022?

is it still possible to get significant organic traffic via SEO in 2022 for a new website, or is paid ads via google/facebook/… now essential to achieve any meaningful visibility? for context - i have a hardware product in a niche industry and have noticed that over the past 20 years it has become really hard to get any visibility at all online unless you buy ads and/or pay so called influencers to do videos (i.e. the situation is now pay-to-play). i wonder how other founders are experiencing this and what they have done to deal with the situation.