Some of us are skeptics, and do not subscribe to the notion there is an evergreen, "sustainable growth model" underlying white hat SEO, in a standard way across the web. If things were that uniform, one could successfully build sites based entirely on 2005 white hat rules. Or, one could disregard Google updates that render previous ways of using a white hat method obsolete. Or, there would be no change in rankings due to recently introduced elements taking up space on page 1 (snippets, AI summaries, ads, etc), crowding out or down organic search results.
The fact is that no one thinks doing WH the way it was done decades ago is a good idea, and no one thinks ignoring updates or the zero-click trends being fostered by Google is a good idea, should tell you the sustainable growth notion is flawed. If you do BH SEO, you have to make continual adjustments. If you do WH SEO, you have to make continual adjustments. There is no set it and forget it. Unless, you do things outside SEO to maintain stable traffic, SEO will always be subject to the search engines making major changes.
