In the last 50 years, software has morphed from a hobbyist pursuit, to a nerdy subculture, to a trillion+ dollars industry. This has caused a pretty significant mix shift in the software developer community: the reason driving the mean developer into this field in 2025 is very different from that of the 2015 developer, and that of the 2005 developer.

Arguably there might be more curious tinkerers nowadays, but they might represent a smaller slice of the pie.

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kccqzy a day ago | parent [-]

And before software became a hobbyist pursuit (with the advent of the PC and the home computer) it was entirely the world of large enterprises and governments. Think large main frames and minicomputers: IBM or Burroughs or DEC. It was also a different age.

	▲	fuzzfactor a day ago \| parent [-]
		>software became a hobbyist pursuit Maybe only possible once you could finally own a whole "system" single-handedly and do whatever you wanted, for the first time ever. Perhaps the fundamental concepts of "owning" your own and doing whatever you want with it have been allowed to dwindle so badly it seems like no comparison.