So a broader philosophical take,

Before the middle ages, you'd make your own product. That turned into local production, mass productio, but still devices could be desicected and analyzed how they worked. A car from the 60's as an example.

So for the most part of our society, reverse engineering was possible. It is only the last decades with closed source software that the opposite is occuring. But did 'we' ever made this a consious decision? Or our we sucker punched by progress