Why wasn't that a factor in the last 20 years though? If anything, it's surprising that it happens so late considering that the "Free lunch is over" paper is 20

Why wasn't that a factor in the last 20 years though? If anything, it's surprising that it happens so late considering that the "Free lunch is over" paper is 20 years old by now: https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~lin/cs380p/Free_Lunch.pdf https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~lin/cs380p/Free_Lunch.pdf