Yeah, the tools are still there to figure out the low level shit, information on it has never been this easy to come by and bright people who are interested will still get there.

However growing up during a time you were forced to figure the low level details of tech out merely to get stuff to work, does mean that if you were into tech back then you definitely became bit of a hacker (in the traditional sense of the word) whilst often what people consider as being into tech now is mainly spending money on shinny toys were everything is already done for you.

Most people who consider themselves as being "into Tech" don't really understand it to significant depth because they never had to and only the few who actually do want to understand it at that level enough to invest time into learning it do.

I'm pretty sure the same effect happened in the early days vs later days of other tech, such as cars.