The problem is that collections of people behave wildly different from individuals. The culture of an org that's mostly H-1Bs is wildly and starkly different than ones with different ratios. This problem, at least when I initially joined Amazon many, many years ago, was actively warned against. The onboarding had a little speech about cultural differences and how it's OK to push back here. We aren't here to be task takers.
Fast forward to today and the culture is wildly different. Many of the practices of offshore teams have leaked into local ones, because the same culture that bred them over there are now in leadership positions here. There's no shortage of teams operating like unquestioning ticket jockeys these days. Your job isn't to produce value, it's to close tickets as fast as possible. Do what management says. Don't ask questions.
Is FAANG just sniffing it's own farts about their "ability"?
Interesting thought ... could be a kernel of truth there.
I think you might be confusing correlation with causation. Software engineering becoming a well paid job for the masses is the reason for both decline of exclusive hacker culture and amount of career-seekers (both domestic and international) willing to join the industry.