SBMM is even worse this season, I didn't think it was possible!?

Skill gap is huge. Even if you play soloQ against a trio of lower skilled opponents you are most likely to lose the fight. 
And solos is not the solution because again the skill gap is huge. 

"Why not make the game fun and mix it up a bit?" How would you do this in a PvP environment since I dont really have any clue?
Dopamine thirst is so big that some will always crave for bigger fix in terms of dmg/kill badges which then leads into exploits. 

There is no fair game in PvP environment because of human nature. There will always be someone who isn't playing fair or "to have fun" resulting taking the fun out of someone elses game. 
PvE is the only solution. But that doesnt offer the same dopamine fix so its ignored = EOMM / rigged matchmaking makes more money.

@Marge010

Pure speculation on my part here: I know the "update" of a few seasons back was supposed to expand the skill buckets from FIVE to some unspecified higher number. If I had to guess, I'd say it was six, maybe seven. Neither here nor there.

Because what I think is really going on (again, pure speculation) has not to do with the number of buckets or the skill ranges they're willing to group together. It has to entirely with how they determine skill. Of course this has to be a "secret sauce" in order to prevent manipulation. I get that, and I agree to an extent. The extent to which I disagree is the extent to which the system can be manipulated even without knowing exactly how it works.

The single best example I can give is one I've speculated on before. Yes, the system has some secret formula for determining your skill. But I genuinely believe that it also has a "glutton for punishment" scale, and every single player in the game falls somewhere on that scale, and the higher up that scale you are then the looser your skill bracket will be and the broader range of skills you will experience in a match. I think it has a lot to do with how many matches you play in a session, how consistent that number is, how likely you are to re-queue after a broad-range match vs. after a close-range match. Etc. Etc. Etc.

In other words, the game looks at how declining k/d numbers, declining win rate numbers, and various other metrics, affect your willingness to re-queue. I guess you could call it your "willingness to participate" quotient. I think for players who quit a lot of matches that number is necessarily low, and I think it results in less brutal lobbies for them. Speculation, but it fits with my own personal experience, and would certainly account for why a lot of "average" players end up in a lot of "above average" lobbies.

Food for thought.

Should EA follow the current trend of PvP decline & co-op PvE on the incline now would be the time to act. 
Helldivers is still selling huge numbers regardless of the Sony mix up. So there is a market for this kind of games.
Player numbers cannot really be compared since Helldivers costs 40 dollars and most likely does not have same issues as free games have (bots, smurfs etc)

Developers coming with new https://youtu.be/5x2gY7CjDKs?si=dSVivqlGDL10CtdC actually funny co-op ideas are buzzing. 
Wouldnt want to miss the hypetrain now right EA? 😉

@reconzero Very well written and I actually tested this theory yesterday playing ranked based on your comments. Had a decent warm up games. Won a game. 
Thought about stopping now with good mentals but decided to play on to test it out. Won the next game as well. It was getting late so I really needed to stop but games were going good. 
Played another one. 4 kills and top 3. One more. Top 5 with 0 kills. Still decent game. I think it was game number 6 after the first win that went to potatoes when hotdrop hermit decided to drop us at that glowing 3rd party central on Broken moon. Jumpmaster ditched us upon fight contact and ran away 1/3 of the map to a crafter to realize we dont have a support legend XDD
Thats where my evening quota for Apex was met. 

So in short. It seems the MM is testing your willingness to keep playing. Cant even remember when was the last time I had so many good games in a row.
If games are bad you need to stop playing to make change. If games are good try to make the most out of it.

Another thing the streamer Noko pointed out on his community IGLing series is that if you are now in gold and below do not hotdrop in ranked because grinders/sweats have already finished their masters badge on their mains and now they smurf around in lower levels for the kills.

As a fix to this, I would propose to implement a similar ladder model as they have in pred rank. If you dont keep grinding on that main account whether its a silver or diamond others can pass you and you will drop to a lower rank. So no guaranteed masters badge unless you actually play the full season with it.