I mentioned that Jason was on this email thread. I'll share what he sent, because that's also not particularly private and also part of what he's been saying publicly recently. He sent back:
Jake: it's all moot... after 7/14/7 SEO will start the long slow death it deserves...
Jake, intrigued, asked:
What happens then?
Jason continued to be coy, saying:
mark it on your calendar... it's the day SEOs became irrelevant.
Somehow, I doubt it, but it will be interesting to see what Jason is on about....if anything
Someone seems to do an SEO is dying post every week, Google bombs are dying not SEO, there are still hundreds of thousands of businesses who just don't have a clue, they don't know how to do the content, they don't know how to do the links, there will always be things that a full-on SEO can help em out with.