disclaimer: i am only in my mid-twenties, so perhaps i lack sufficient perspective on this topic. i can only compare the landscape today against my childhood friendships.

i do remember having fewer, closer friends when i was younger. at the same time, i don't feel that we had much in common other than being the same age, in the same place, and being part of the "outgroup". i valued these relationships very much (and still do), but they represented the exhaustion of the local pool of viable friends. we spent so much time together and developed strong bonds mainly because there was no clear way to access a more global pool to select from.

today i have many acquaintances with whom i routinely share deep conversations over very specific interests (even irl!), and it is relatively easy to find more of these if i desire. while my social life is much more intellectually rich, it is definitely harder to develop a trusted confidant; conversations just never seem to naturally flow into that territory.

to me, it seems like the older style of friendship and the modern friendship occupy different places on roughly the same pareto frontier. you can certainly prefer one or the other, but i don't feel that either is intrinsically better.