Changed with ice cream in general? No. But there are things that have been possible to add to ice cream for a while that do what you describe. It could be that you're just starting to notice, you shifted brands, or the brand you liked shifted formulations.

Many people dislike the things that get added to ice cream, and so there are definitely brands out there that don't include those things.
In my opinion the worst of the additives is not nearly as bad as a lot of people would make them out to be.

In the broadest sense possible ice cream is sugar, fat, water and thickener where the fat has been cooled to a solid and allowed to just start to re-form into a lump, the ice hasn't been allowed to form crystals big enough to notice, and the thickener and sugars glue the fat and ice together such that they trap miniature air bubbles.
Some people insist that the fat and thickener have to come from cow milk in the form of milk fat and milk proteins, but that's a bit pedantic for my tastes.

The easiest way to cheap out on ice cream is to add a lot more air. Since we sell it based on volume, if we churn more air into it we get more ice cream to sell for the same quantity of ingredients, and the only effect is that the ice cream is lighter, softer and fluffier.
There's a legal maximum to how much air you can mix in though.

The next hurdle you run into is that milk proteins are actually kinda shit at keeping those air bubbles trapped. Adding things like guar gum or carrageenan will make it much gloopier and hold those air bubbles better.
This makes the ice cream last longer in a warehouse without the bubbles getting out and leaving your ice cream as a brick.

Next is rampant ice crystal spread, which can turn the ice cream into a brick in the warehouse. This can be slowed down using something called methylcellulose. It's basically processed plant fiber ground into a powder. It's also used in pills as the inert binder, and as a dietary fiber source.
It's popular because is known to be safe and inert, it's very cheap, it prevents ice crystal formation, and it has the fun quirk of getting thicker as it warms, for the added property of keeping your ice cream fluffy and areated as it warms up on your drive home.

Finally, you can tweak the fat blend. This one isn't as common because milk fat is already insanely cheap since we subsidize the hell out of the dairy industry.
Changing the blend to use fats that are solid at higher temperatures does have utility for things you expect to be eaten slower, at higher temperatures, or if you want parents to not be mad that your ice cream makes kids extra sticky.

By far the biggest way that I've cream will save costs is by putting as much air in it as possible. It lets them sell you less in the same size box for the same price.
It's a case where shrinkflation means making things bigger, which is fun.

The brands that didn't take that route invariably rebranded as "premium" ice creams, so they can charge more for the same thing without raising consumer ire.