> I enjoy the camaraderie of being around others who feel that way too.

But... they're still there. They're a little diluted, but I've not yet worked somewhere where I had no like-minded tinkerers amongst my colleagues. I don't think I'd want to, but it just hasn't come up.

> As to cool projects, sure. They're fun, interesting and creative, but perhaps not part of (a very vague, admittedly) "something bigger", like "the open source movement" was back in the day.

But the free software movement dates back to the early 80s, not the 2000s that we're talking about. Open source itself was being seen as a dilution of the principles of free software in the late 90s/early 2000s. More to the point, free and open source software is still very much here - we're absolutely surrounded by it.

> mainframes and such were definitely an era where the power was more with the large companies

It's oscillated. DEC used to be the zippy young upstart snapping at IBM's heels you know. Microsoft didn't start out big and evil; nor did Google if it comes to that. Put not thy faith in shiny new companies for they shall surely betray thee once they devour the opposition... :D