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How could they? You can't do this on your Wii et al. Modern home systems are geared towards a strictly consumerist experience, not a creative one.

This is one of the reasons the Raspberry Pi was created.

What about JS, or writing games in Haxe that compile to run in Flash (which, even if people hate it, is incredibly common).

I can even use AIDE on my phone to write applications for my phone!

I have no idea why anybody claims we have less programming freedom than in the past.

The claim is that it's less accessible for children, not that we have less freedom.

Modern computing environments are way more accessible (and far more readily available).