It actually translates to “I’m not getting action with weaker holdings”.
Back in the days at high stakes for a lot of money people would limp or open with J9o type of holdings and happily call a 3 bet hoping to hit the flop and win a big pot. These type of players are rare even in live 200nl.
You are partially right though, the game did get hard and these type of players that say that poker is dead did not fully adjust to the new meta. in other words back in the good old days of the poker boom and pre boom your winrate would had been through the roof.