Isn't this to be expected, though? As software consumption becomes more commoditized and de facto standards arise (your basic lookalike business webpage), more and more people are able to easily replicate the feat, and it becomes less about creativity and innovation and more just a matter of rote implementation, like any other manufacturing trade. Interchangeable agencies pumping out cookie-cutter code on an assembly line, with some white-labeling thrown in. Code is just another commodity (you can already produce usable code after a short boot camp, not unlike any other corporate training program).
These days what sells isn't even software engineering excellence, but just advertising bubbles inside walled gardens, driven by divisive and sensationalized content. What little "innovation" there is seems to mostly be B2B-toolchain related, shovel vendors desperately trying to sell to the next big garden, all funded by speculative VC money. It's just another bubble.
On top of that, after COVID, with more companies moving remote, US workers now have to compete with not just each other from different states, but a global labor pool that typically works way harder than we do for much less money. And with income inequality getting worse and privacy concerns growing stronger, there's only so many dollars to be had chasing viral networks of peasants... that well isn't going to run forever.
Like any other maturing business, what gets you the big bucks ends up being charisma, manipulation, and personality... not engineering. Proper "hard" engineering still pays the medium bucks, but most coders aren't like that, just various shades of amateur pumping out mediocre code for other mediocre companies, the same mediocrity most of the world has always run on, no matter their line of work. It's definitely not the 80s anymore, where coding is some elitist white-collar thing. It's just another job.