As far as i know, altcoins have always had the problems you talked about, a few of them pump and dump, and from there they do not rise again. Now that there are more altcoins with every passing moment, it becomes even more difficult to get lucky and find the ones that will generate you any profit, that's why a lot of people rightly say that investing in altcoins is similar to gambling.
Investing in altcoins is like gambling only if you are investing with your eyes closed and without doing proper research about the project you have chosen. I know that the market is highly saturated and new projects have taken the market by storm, but if someone does proper research about all the newly launched altcoins and their projects, they can determine which ones have the highest potential to generate good profit.
Most people consider meme coins altcoins and invest in them, and when they lose money, they say investing in altcoins is like gambling, I mean, did you even know that meme coins are something completely different? Yes, they have the characteristics of an altcoin because they are created as them, but most of them don't have proper projects backing them up.