I think you are right to say that the methods are vastly improved, but the ends to which those methods are applied have become ever more uninteresting (for a lot of people), and often morally suspect. We have built exquisite tools, but we use them to extract profit, to manipulate behaviour and often for no discernable purpose at all.
Programming has become joyless.
There are ever-shrinking spaces where a developer gets to build something novel - something that's state of the art, that's creative, that taxes their intellect and brings the pleasure of achievement forth. It seems that for every developer working on rocket guidance systems or self-driving cars there are a hundred toiling away on yet another CRUD app, or wrestling with a hydra of microservices. It pays well, but fun it is not.
Programming has become joyless.
There are ever-shrinking spaces where a developer gets to build something novel - something that's state of the art, that's creative, that taxes their intellect and brings the pleasure of achievement forth. It seems that for every developer working on rocket guidance systems or self-driving cars there are a hundred toiling away on yet another CRUD app, or wrestling with a hydra of microservices. It pays well, but fun it is not.