I just saw a graph showing investment in ico's in the last 2 years, and it looks like it's gone to nearly nothing. Since I don't follow new ico's, or bounties for that matter, I don't know how many are currently going on and I haven't seen any data on that. But it does seem like the spam situation has improved since 2017-18. Partly that's because of the merit system, but I think it also has a lot to do with the decrease in the number of new campaigns and bounties.
That's a good thing in my opinion. I have nothing against signature campaigns (I'm obviously in one), but they do tend to attract spammers like a magnet to steel. I'm hoping bounties do eventually die off for good.