it's true. once you've gone "deep" for a few years in at least one technical domain, that depth transfers pretty well to the next big new thing you didn't know you'd have to learn when you started. i think the fear about the new regime is that people will be denied the opportunity to obtain depth in anything. like we'll encounter the human equivalent of domestication syndrome.
i remember when certain loud individuals believed that {managed memory | IDE auto-complete | statistical db optimizers | programming languages higher than assembly level | ...} were going to make everyone stupid. but the higher-order systems have continued to present rich problems to engage the mind and spark creativity. this era feels different though, the worry more pressing.
At the risk of seeming pedantic, 80/20 is not a “metaphor”. The OP calls it that “old joke” (which is a metaphor). I would call it a “rule of thumb” or an “model” (“abstract model” might be the term).