> I also believe another important step to user empowerment is making programming easier for casual users, and making it easier for casual users to contribute to open-source software
In the history of Computer Science, it has never been easier to start programming than it is now. You have excellent support of WSL, access to Raspberry Pis, and $5 digital ocean cloud server to experiment with vast variety of technologies.
Lastly, I think there is some selection bias going on or looking at the past from the rose tinted glasses. Before computers were democratized, only people who were passionate about them used them. It's no surprise that they did all sorts of innovative things with them. Now that computers are widely available, the blame is being put on platforms instead of accepting the fact that the majority of population does not care about programming or computer science.