I'm not sure about better, but it was certainly a very different set of disciplines

My favorite "old development" story is the one about how the developers snuck into Apple to make Graphing Calculator, which is one of my favorite applications of all time.

(For those who may not be familiar: https://www.pacifict.com/Story/)

And was the pay better back then than it is now? Just curious

Software salaries have always been good, usually a bit better than middle middle class. For contrast, I've worked as an auto mechanic. Good, middle-class living that. Left that for software, made a bit more money doing software.

After a bit, but still before the dot-bomb, I went to work for Microsoft. Salary was shit, but the stock options were still enticing back then. All the dot-bombs were paying better, so MSFT upped the salaries. Based on performance reviews, I was apparently a pretty good employee, so the mileage of many might vary. But after one review I got a 35% salary bump that year in an effort to keep MSFT competitive.

One more comparison: my responsibilities aren't much greater than they were back in the day, but I'd say I live a more comfortable lifestyle now than I did then.

tl;dr: it's super-hard to make direct comparisons, but I'd say salaries are better now than back-in-the-day.

I'd say given inflation, cost of living etc, that pay back in the day was on average, over average for upper figure salaries. There are more devs/techies/IT literate people about these days so although there are sought after roles, positions are easier to fill these days. IMHO, Obvs.

hard to say. Salary was market rate. Stock was 2001-era amzn, which wasn't a bad deal