Well yes it has changed. But look at everything that can be accomplished with these abstractions/libraries/frameworks that exist.

Why reinvent the wheel.

Yes, there might be less room for the Wild Wild West approach, as mentioned in the article: But that is the structure of compounded knowledge/tooling/code available to developers/others to create more enriched software, in the sense that it runs on what is available now and provides value in today's age of computing.

I also had a 486DX2-66. And I recall coding in Assembly, Pascal, C etc.

I do not miss it. These days I can create experiences that reach so many more people (a matured Interneet with realtime possibilities - to simplify) and with so much more potential for Good. Good in the sense of usefulness for users, good in the sense of making money (yeah, that aspect still exists).

I do understand your sentiment and the despairing tone. There have been times when I was struck by the same.

But I do not miss 1995 and struggling with a low-level formatted HD and Assembly that screwed up my floppy disks, or the worms that reached my box, or the awful web sites in terms of UX that were around, or pulling coaxial cables around for LAN parties.

It's just a different world now. But I get what you are saying, and respect it. Stay optimistic. :)