If the wrapper/library is generic enough then it can be less work across projects and codebase and won't need to change with an actively updated library that is

If the wrapper/library is generic enough then it can be less work across projects and codebase and won't need to change with an actively updated library that is wrapped. If the abstraction wrapper is tightly coupled, uses third party library types that can change or leaky then yeah, the effort is moot and you end up with more work. Another case is where you have some sort of messaging system where you want responses/events to be uniform to your system rather than unique to a platform or even a company/product that doesn't match your codebase. An example might be wrapping a game recording library, audio library or something that does not fit well in the codebase or complicates maintenance, even stylistically/standards, or you only need small part of the library like activating it, common types messaging or data level. Game engines themselves are massive wrappers around many wrapped systems.