Perhaps it's more that most (not all) of the many programmers today are not as good as the (relatively fortunate) few who had access to computers in the past.

In fact, I'd go so far as to suggest there are more good programmers about today then there were in the past. Though having said that, percentage-wise I'd say the profession is definitely being deskilled (good thing if you're a manager, bad thing if you're a good programmer).