I think there's two main things at play that people don't usually mention. Many of the things commonly mentioned, I agree with: waking up to the "game", RTO, layoffs, wealth inequality, etc. But I also see people can get profound entertainment elsewhere. Tiktok, games, social media, etc. It used to be really hard to be social, you had to go somewhere, including work, to interact with people. Now, you can interact in myriad ways online. Yes, it is different, and there are downsides, but it is easy, which is a huge upside, and you can focus on exactly what you want. In the 90s if you were into some obscure hobby, your choices were extremely limited. Now you can get easy interaction with fans of the niche of the niche. Again, not without its downsides. Life used to be pretty boring, speaking as a guy in his 50s. The 1980s and 1990s were ok if you were into mainstream stuff, but you had to abide by the culture or be rejected. It was pretty boring, and now you can find so much interesting stuff it is awesome. But also a bit lonely at times. Still, not nearly as lonely as it used to be. Work was an outlet to be around people. Now I don't care that much about doing that. And it gave you something to do. Less so these days.<p>Second, things are really changing anymore. I think about the past 10 years and largely my life is almost identical, which is bizarre compared to the 4 decades before that. I look around my room (home office), and everything is a bit nicer, but we have LCD displays, and laptops, and webcams, and all this stuff around me that is just like what I used to have. Compare 2015 to 2005 and it is quite different. 2005 was all CRTs and desktop computers that were loud and slow. No social media, the Internet was useful but not omnipresent. Movie theaters and CDs and DVDs were everywhere. If you wanted to interact with people, you called them or got together. Very different life. 1995 was, of course, way different as well.<p>Now, the future seems done, in a way. And that bleeds into work, I don't hear about anyone really building anything new and exciting. Just things getting better and cheaper (except housing!). AI is a thing, but it is terrifying. Either it is a bubble and will smash the economy, or it will take over work and is terrifying, or it will go Terminator and is terrifying. Sure, there may be a more golden Culture-esque universe, and I'm hoping for that. Still, it doesn't feel like we as a people have much say in that, just some disgustingly rich asshats competing with each other for our future.