I agree with your claim to the extent that "cool" tech is more rare these days. It feels like there was something interesting being released monthly throughout the aughts. Pointing to an article posted on HN some time ago[1]; it could be that starting a company, creating a gadget, launching an app has become too easy. When things are too easy, more people do it, yields more noise in the space. Cool stuff is still out there. You just need to dig deep and look at specialized sectors.