I have the impression that it's at least true if we change it to "about controlling the end user's experience". It can't be denied that the experiences are more

I have the impression that it's at least true if we change it to "about controlling the end user's experience". It can't be denied that the experiences are more crafted, and the users are more guided to do things now than before. But there's also the shift where the developer makes the user be drawn towards fulfilling the developer's needs instead of their own. Dark patterns are all about the user experience, as are ads, loot boxes and microtransactions. I'm also seeing a more benign shift from letting the user focus on the activity towards focusing on the brand. Multi-messengers place contacts front and center, and BlackBerry used to be this way I'm told. Maemo gave each user their own window. Today, each window belongs to a differently branded messenger, each with all the contacts. Similarly, desktop applications often don't integrate into the system's visual language, placing their brand recognition over user's sense of familiarity. Finally, the growing prevalence of permissive licenses, where nothing is owed to the user, compared to copyleft with GPL as the prime example is just an example of the user's experience being simply considered less important than before.