Yep.
The publishing business is “no risk, only profit”.
They don’t function to surface amazing authors to the public. That’s not what they do. Instead they act as a quasi-monopoly that gatekeeps between authors and book sales, collecting a rent enforced by market position.
I have friends who work in publishing and the state of that industry is that they aren’t simply assessing the quality of the book and writing, they’re looking for someone who already has an audience (eg social media following) that they can bring with them to ensure sales.
I do not work in that industry but I would suggest don’t get too hung up on “being published” since only a tiny percentage of books actually make enough sales to get royalties back to the author. A fraction of a percent generate enough royalties to make it a career. That’s the unfortunate truth.
The path that I would suggest is to find your audience online. Make your goal getting a readership in online spaces and self-publish informally to a blog & cross-post to writing sites.
Think of it as being similar to wanting to make it in music. You could be an amazing musician, but if you don’t have a following then you’re going to get screwed by the publishers if they’re even willing to look at you.
The zombie apocalypse has started but it takes the attendees of Burning Man some time to work out what’s going on.
Which fucking moron didn’t even have one backup?
AI has made it much faster to make a shitty landing page (now it only takes 2 hours when it used to take maybe 6)