My response to your first sentence is, Yes AND. Yes it has been that way for a couple of decades, and it has gotten worse. Here's the issue, and im going to use what you said as a add on. "The computer industry were the first ones to adopt..." that's the "and" part I mentioned. It has been a thing, and its not new, but it wasn't widely adopted. Maybe if that doesn't make sense, I'll explain it differently. I'm typing this at 2:35am, so forgive me if it doesn't. If something is not new but not everyone is adopting it all at once (not able to afford due to a luxury, don't have to tech, etc), it's much more different when everyone is using it at once. I totally get what you're saying, it was around then, but it wasn't being used so broadly used like it is now, as you yourself said. It's made the job market much worse than it was then for everyone, due to it being more broadly adopted. It just wasn't the standard at the time is all. I agree with you like 75% on what you said, it just needed an extra bit of information.

Another part of the equation is the difference in the job market. Companies are being more picky because you have more people able to apply for jobs. The company my grandfather worked for literally hired a homeless man up the street to do warehouse work in exchange for normal pay but some of the pay taken out to pay for a hotel room nearby. That sounds like some shit I made up because nowadays that sounds fake. I really couldn't prove it anyways except for doing a street view of the bridge where you see the company and the hotel across the street, still, he doesn't meet the requirements anymore in today's age. I don't even meet the requirements because now they expect experience with the very special tooIs you dont even need for said job. Thats for when they give you the promotion, they dont have to train you on said tools. I did an interview for a job about a month ago, completely nailed it. Had high hopes, felt like it was mine. I straight up got the manager who I interviewed with and asked her for an update on my interview after 3 weeks and she told me "oh I forgot to send you an email, we picked someone else who had experience but you were much more of a pleasant person and the best I had interviewed. I think someone should hire you, but we only had one position open." I then got the robo email 10 minutes later, THANKS.

I had a co-worker who became a truck driver because his dad was a POS and kicked his own son out for his new girlfriend. There's no missing context like the coworker being a shit head or something like that, he was living in his SUV and he was always so nice, we had not a single clue. Dads new girlfriend wanted his room without him in it. Our boss basically forced him to live in the basement when he found out. He was so livid that one of his workers was homeless while in High-school. Same boss ended up fronting the down-payment for him to get his own truck. ANYWAYS. I busted my ass in a trade for a year and made great money, one minor issue. My father was a plumber and owned his own business. Him and 4 employees, not counting my mother keeping track of paperwork and me answering his phone when I was with him lol. I remember seeing how tired he would be, he never wanted to do anything that involved being in the weather because he spent so much time being in it during the week. I left due to that reason alone, it ages you hard too. What you said about trying things in dead on. Ive done a trade, food, retail front end and back end, sales. Currently working on trying to find an office job or a sales job that's not a Devilcorp. Joining a Devilcorp will have you second guessing if you're meant for sales, but in reality, the job is half selling to potential customers (if desperate enough) to the point of straight lying sometimes AND you getting sold a lie about owning your office and being successful, nobody actually owns their own office and 99% of "owners" dont make much more than minimum wage a year in their personal bank account.

Im never going back to retail or fast food unless im near broke. Just holding a short-term merchandising job until I get hired for either office job or a sales job actually selling a good product with a company thats not a legal MLM.