The "easy" gains are gone, definitely.
hehe, i remember a good friend of mine (a trader) said the exact same thing to me in june 2017. it's funny how quickly sentiment can change! markets always seem experience a "quiet period" before they turn bullish. i think that's where we are now.
You might still be able to find them in altcoins but you'll have a lot of losers for each 1000x winner.
altcoins have definitely become more saturated, that's for sure. you definitely have to spread around risk (don't go all in on one coin) and reinvest capital from pumped coins into coins that haven't pumped. and you have to know that yes, some of your positions will never get pumped. this is a super speculative market---you're trading market expectations and hype, not real fundamentals.
There will be another bull market but will be driven by usage and engagement by users which requires not just infrastructure for blockchain to build out and mature but to have killer apps that operate on them.
people always say that, but every cycle is built on hype more than actual usage.