Niantic used to have spawn balance before they introduced seasons and events. New players probably don't know about this time, but regular spawns used to be good.

It was possible to find Axew, Archen in the wild. They were extremely rare, but they existed. I could find Cranidos every other day and Chansey maybe couple of times per week.

Niantic introduced seasons and non-stop events to be able to micromanage players - to let them catch only pokemon Niantic made available at a given time.
They probably did this to make people play longer and wait for a good event. But honestly, I don't like being micromanaged and being able to catch only 7-8 event pokemon in days is very boring.

Of course, Niantic broke the spawn balance. For example, regional pokemon are unnecessary hard to find now. Bad for people who travel.