From Linux to Wikipedia: How Volunteers Build the Internet
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/from-linux-to-wikipedia-how-volunteers-build-the-internet/I feel that modern tech first took away the passion, by making everything a product, than took away the means by making everything cloud, and now kills the skills by eutrophizing our brains with AI.
There is no cabal of evil tech that pushes this, but the results are the same.
There's also another aspect - in the early days, and often times that's what's attractive to contributors - the field might be a total niche that appeals to us nerds. But then, slowly but surely, as it gets taken over by commercial interests, that appeal gets totally lost.
Like, it was fun to dabble in HTML and make your own little website in the mid-90s. Now it's a total drag to do "web development" as your full-time job, staring at Claude Code all day long - YMMV.
Great OS volunteers still exist today, but the ratio of genuine field lover to money chaser is absurd now.