I agree with the author but I think a key driver of this is overall loss of psychological safety in the world.

People play and tinker when they feel that they are in a secure enough environment to fritter away time without feeling like they've incurred risk by doing so.

Given the state of the climate, economy and politics today, I think a whole lot of people feel a whole lot less secure. When I look back at recent US history when there seemed to be the most innovation going on, it was the 90s after the fall of the Berlin Wall and before 9/11. That was probably the "OK-est" a lot of folks in the US felt in their lives.

You might rightly point out that people are wasting lots of time these days, staring at screens, binging TV shows, re-reading giant sci-fi and fantasy series. That's true. But there's a big difference between wasting time escaping the world versus "wasting" time creatively engaging with it.

Deflating that theory is the tsunami of innovation in computing in the '60s-'80s in spite of the even worse state of the economy and politics in that era. (Indirectly the climate too if you count the widespread air and water pollution back then.)

The 90s was just the crest of the momentum of the tech enthusiasm built up during the 70s and 80s. You know, the Vietnam War, petroleum crisis 70s and the culmination of Cold War, Reagan and Thatcher, oh God we're all going to die 80s.