lol what does this even mean? When was anything you said not the case?
Were computers more democratic when they were obscenely expensive time-sharing mainframes living at places like universities and Bell Labs? Were developers ever anything other than a 'cog in the machine' at any point during the 20th century? You can't just say 'late stage capitalism' and somehow have it morph into a meaningful (or even coherent) point jfyi
Computers were more open and about as powerful for a brief period a few years ago, say 2012-2018. They were certainly more open for the many decades between when PCs came out and now. We didn’t just jump straight from time shared mainframes to modern PCs...
Yes, great developers were much more powerful than cogs in the machine until recently. Being a dev was not a mainstream, sexy, or high paid career until recently. So the kinds of people the profession attracted were quite different.
Maybe you feel anything with the words late-stage capitalism can be discarded immediately. Maybe it sounds hysterical or anti-progress. But we certainly can make technology better for non technical people without taking away configurability and freedom for experts to truly own their machine as well.
Software Development and IT weren't sexy or mainstream during the Dot Com bubble? That is quite an ahistorical opinion imo. I'm old enough to remember the mountain of 'Learn Java in 24 Hours' books at every bookstore in the 90s.
Were computers more democratic when they were obscenely expensive time-sharing mainframes living at places like universities and Bell Labs? Were developers ever anything other than a 'cog in the machine' at any point during the 20th century? You can't just say 'late stage capitalism' and somehow have it morph into a meaningful (or even coherent) point jfyi