no seizing of phones, no detention/disciplary action? It's not even about the phones at that point, it's just general disrespect to staff. What changed overtime?

Or maybe it was always this way and I simply had a better environment?

As usual, it's the parents, as a result of decades of creeping helicopter parenting. Without district-wide policy, if a teacher were to confiscate a phone, that would lead to a parent calling the school administrator to complain. The administrators, absent a policy, are spineless, and assure the parent it won't happen again. The teacher then gets chastised by the administration.

So then the teachers just stop caring: doing something about the phone distraction will only cause them grief. If the kids don't learn, whatever, not their problem, really, as long as the same thing is happening in every other classroom, which it is.

A school-wide policy, or, even better, a district-wide policy gives the teachers and school administrators cover: they can make sympathetic noises when the parents complain, but tell the parents there's nothing they can do, because the policy comes from above their pay grade.