The funny part is that even if you could produce direct evidence for that, I guarantee that like most discussions about this sort of topic, the itty-bitty teensy-tiny fact that "wages have completely stagnated over the past 3 decades in the West and younger generations have less comparative wealth than ever before" somehow wouldn't enter the conversation for some reason. This isn't even debatable but somehow easily forgotten. Oh, and that's assuming it's a complaint about younger generations ruining things. Which it always, 100% of the time, is.

Like: Hmmmm, gee whiz, can't imagine why consumers who have been sold up the river into using nothing but ad-funded spyware freemium apps, funded with VC cash from Saudi Aramco but still losing $500,000,000 every second in the name of "growth", a generation who have less money than ever before with completely dead-end wages while cost of living continues to rise, might not want to pay for things. Surely the answer is that "They are entitled", because clearly they're all actually flush with cash, and just don't want to pay. There isn't any other possible other external factors involved, because "Society" isn't actually real, after all, and externalities don't actually exist. I'm a very smart computer programmer whose intellect should be taken seriously on these matters.

A hunch based on online discussions and sites like this one, dedicated to creating new business, but every time some posts a nice commercial tool, there are dozens of posts with copy-cats that do half of the work, but hey they are free beer.

This is a fascinatingly entitled attitude. So you think you deserve to be paid for doing the same as someone else, for a higher price, but worse?

Everyone deserves to be paid for the fruits of their labour.