Because beforehand engineers could be reasonably confident that their work would simply accelerate a the growth of a growing pie; today, most expect that further development will be used, first and foremost, to replace labor. Most sectors do not grow indefinitely, so there's no reason to assume software has to.

To put it gently, yes it feels different: for people who haven't already saved a lifetime of SWE wages, this is the first credible threat to the sector in which they're employed since the dot com bubble. People need to work to eat.