Yea honestly it probably has more to do with the game in vogue. Auto aim tends to only happen on consoles anyways, otherwise the skill ceiling on aiming gets too high.

Plus there was call of duty, then overwatch, then pubg, then fortnight, then valorant. The PC ones tended to not have auto aim. Of course consoles tend to have auto aim but console gamers are also more casual and mass market… but the auto aim just makes up for the inaccuracy and speed of joystick control.

Also fortnite didn’t destroy pubg. People just got tired of the game. Most pubg players I know just stopped playing, and there were a lot of adults that played it. Fortnite had a totally different crowd (basically preteens and kids) because the game was free to play whereas pubg cost a whopping $30 and required a beefy computer.

There's certainly a community of "hardcore" players who want as little autoaim as possible. But I'm frankly convinced that they're in the minority.