This is simply not true, early days of ICO were just as bad, the percentage of scam projects was the same as today. The only difference for bounty hunters is that bounties were paid in BTC or ETH at first, or at least people could sell their tokens on exchanges for a good price, since the whole market was very hyped. But still all those projects were scams, their devs never had intention to finish them. Today the hype is long gone, and investors are generally suspicious of these offerings, so bounty rewards were reduced to almost nothing.
I would consider 2017 as the year that many hardworking bounty hunters made their big money despite all the scams that perpetrated the cryptocurrency marketplace. Yes, there were many frauds and failures too but those who made it to the exchanges got the best reception in terms of prices, consequently bounty hunters were having a fiesta.
Now, the situation is direly different as many of the projects can fail to get into good exchanges and if they do there is no more big demand waiting at the helm making trading anemic or lacking the energy needed. Of course, there are a few exemptions and lucky are those that got into those projects (example is the project Harmony which did its IEO in Binance).
Still, when we look at the bounty threads, participants are having a good time and seems to be enjoying their time, sharing and posting about the projects they hope will give them some income they need. Sadly, many hopes will just vanish into thin air months after the crowdfunding activities are gone.