More dissatisfying jobs? Really? Have you seen what most people used to do in the past, and with what resources?
If more are indeed "dissatisfied", methinks it's because they have the relative luxury of dissatisfaction in place of the harsh existential reality of survival. As the Tappit brothers noted: the difference between two headlights and one headlight is a lot less than the difference between one headlight and no headlight. Those with Bell phones complained little because the alternative was writing a letter or walking - or not communicating at all - to another person; we complain of phones as we do now because we can't imagine not having at least a landline handy.
It depends on where and how far back you want to look. A lot of Americans worked in morally repellent conditions in factories for little pay in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Earlier, though, I suspect being a wainwright or blacksmith or bookbinder - crafting a final good and seeing directly how it benefited your customer - was more satisfying than working as a corporate lawyer or a university administrator.
The Industrial Revolution allowed us to solve more and more desires. All of our basic ones are satisfied (in the West, for 99% of people). But the treadmill of desire continues, so jobs were created to satisfy those, too. And they feel fake because those jobs are increasingly divorced from central, "real" human desires.
If more are indeed "dissatisfied", methinks it's because they have the relative luxury of dissatisfaction in place of the harsh existential reality of survival. As the Tappit brothers noted: the difference between two headlights and one headlight is a lot less than the difference between one headlight and no headlight. Those with Bell phones complained little because the alternative was writing a letter or walking - or not communicating at all - to another person; we complain of phones as we do now because we can't imagine not having at least a landline handy.