I also came up in the dawn of the PC era, when it was truly a hobbyists paradise. I don't think the hacker spirit is gone, it's just drowned out by the big business of tech which didn't really start to make in-roads with individuals until ~20 years ago. Distasteful as popular tech maybe today, look on the bright side: it's never been easier or cheaper to build cool shit. The only issue is sifting through the ubiquitous advertising, self-promotion and hype to find the genuinely cool stuff.