Fantastic. Several halloweens ago I wore vampire fangs and told a beautiful girl at a concert that I worked at the local blood bank. She said "yeah?" and I followed up with, "would you like to make a donation?"
From a systems thinking perspective there can be virtuous cycles or vicious cycles that self-reinforce. It could be that there are 449 ghost jobs being posted for every one real job. There are alternative explanations possible to why it took 450 applications to land one position. I disagree with your conclusion.
Having been applying to a lot of roles I appreciate the post you made. I will hang in there. I started working on an Elixir application to grow my skills while applying. It is an exhausting process and I'm glad you got a job. Hopefully I will get one soon.