Up until the late 1990s it was not possible to playback full screen video on regular PC hardware, because of both CPU and storage limitations.
This meant that if you wanted smooth high resolution animations, you'd have to resort to programming and a lot of tricks.
As soon as full screen video became an option, the only limitation was the actual content of the pixels, and everything could be prerendered. Competing as an individual with, say, Pixar in that context would never make your stuff look nice.
The same story goes for tracked music or chiptunes, compared to MP3s.
This reduced the audience to those who could understand the effort that you went through. In many ways, that just never compares to the original demoscene feel.
It was an amazing time to be alive, but it will never come back, because technology has moved on. I wonder what underground scene kids these days will cherish as much later in life.