That’s something I’ve seen. Credentialed folks taking up much more space in the first pages of the SERPS. I don’t have credentials, and will not be spending the time / money in that direction, but I see the advice in many of these higher ranking results, and it’s often used and abused / recycled info that doesn’t do the job, or outright incorrect (I know my stuff, not a hack job ;).
But yes, you bring up another concern of mine... Is what I AM unfixable.
Thing that gives me some light / hope are some of sites taking up high rankings are not credentialed at all either. One is a kid in his mid / late 20s who writes about SEO / Marketing and... random sex articles? I believe he’s a social / outreach / networking phenom though, has links from super high DA sources.
Get Roman and For Hims are obviously purely commercial, but have money for high ranking placement and to get MDs to write articles.
There are also several “pick up artist” and “alpha method” ”bro type sites” with no credentials, (and some with very little links built to them), ranking for mediocre content...
All this gives me hope to stay in there, but I’ve definitely seen the trend you’re mentioning here...