We've been playing as a family since it first came out, but they've definitely slowed... I still haven't gotten all my 100iv shinys so I'm still collecting.
i agree with you and stopped a few years ago for similar wariness
i also had a half-baked thought: there have been videos showing players using spoofed gps to play for years. how difficult would it be to spoof camera and gyros (earns you bonuses in-game to scan points of interest) in addition to gps, as a "catch your mons, give the ai bogus intel" sort of affair?