Oh, I agree entirely. The new paradigm is entirely unsatisfying to me too. It's not the same work that I trained my entire life to get good at, and the new work is not as fun. I trained to get good at this work because I just loved it since I was first introduced to it at ~10. I would have, and was, doing it for free for years.
Unfortunately that doesn't change my outlook on where all this is headed.
Perhaps, then, you can actually empathize with people who don't get value from it :) I used to enjoy the work, now I don't, so I'm posting on HN and daydreaming about other careers, instead of doing something useful.