This is one part of it, but not the whole thing I believe. The other thing that happened is that "UX research" paradoxically became more data-driven and "scien

This is one part of it, but not the whole thing I believe. The other thing that happened is that "UX research" paradoxically became more data-driven and "scientific", with live telemetry that monitors how UIs are practically used becoming standard. We're able to run "experiments" and directly compare the user interactions from two different variants of the same UI. So in theory, with all that data, we should be making more usable and intuitive UIs than ever. And we are in a way, just not in a user-empowering way. UI design is evaluated by target metrics, and those metrics are firmly in service of the companies' interests, not the users'. Hence so much focus on "engagement" and on making certain flows and activities as frictionless as possible - at the cost of consistency and all the rest of activities that a user might be more interested in than the company... Basically, UX design as a field is alive and well, maybe more so than it ever was - it's "just" not in service of the user anymore...