I agree it's not an illusion. And I agree with your first point. At least it feels like there's much less emphasis on improving people's lives. I still believe

I agree it's not an illusion. And I agree with your first point. At least it feels like there's much less emphasis on improving people's lives. I still believe that a product has to have some perceived positive impact on a user's life to be successful. But nowadays, most of the time, that positive impact seems to be focused on instant gratification rather than long term utility. Since the widespread use of the internet became a thing, the back channel then allowed for treating the user as a commodity. I believe this may be one of the qualitative key differences between "now and then" and, if so, it may be a good answer to OP's question. Better than "we're just getting old, it has always been that way", which I believe is not true.