I think the barriers are lower. As a kid, my obstacles were things like not having access to a free compiler. Or maybe I could have gotten a free one but I was a kid and the only ones I was aware of were hundreds of dollars, way out of reach. Now I can download any compiler I want for free, as well as tools like VSCode, Visual Studio etc. Also there are environments like Dr. Racket, which are awesome and can be used to build basically any kind of application, and come with all the tutorials at your fingertips.