The other problem of "better hardware" is that "better" according to us isn't the same as according to the market.

General-purpose computing devices are less and less popular and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of developing countries have better smartphone penetration than computers, partly because smartphones offer better opportunities for rent-seeking and the attention economy where as general-purpose computers hamper those things, so the former are being pushed more and potentially subsidized.

This is even a problem in Western countries - a lot of kids/teenagers today feel at home on a phone yet don't even understand the concept of a file.

A lot of people got into software engineering by learning it themselves because they had access to a general-purpose computer, since back in the day it was the only computer you could get. Nowadays, a lot of families might be satisfied with a phone, tablet and games console - those offer zero opportunities for learning programming.