2002 is when tvs got larger, fidelity with cable tv improved, dvds were readily available, etc. it was also an era where more people started gaming (the industry took off around this time), so people were shifting away from movie theaters as a social activity.
The rise of literalism (as in the article) is probably a partial response to increasingly shorter attention spans.
Songs are shorter (<3 minutes) and lyrics simpler as a result. People don’t want to think anymore.
Beatles songs are around 164 seconds long on average.
https://www.aaronkrerowicz.com/uploads/6/5/4/3/6543054/durat...
An 2005 compilation of Johnny Cash’s greatest songs averages just a little over three minutes per song.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Johnny_Cash
Gerry and The Pacemakers did not have long songs either.
https://www.discogs.com/master/369149-Gerry-And-The-Pacemake...
Neither did the Kingston Trio.
https://www.discogs.com/release/666498-Kingston-Trio-The-Kin...
Before recording, popular forms of folk music typically has just one fairly short melody. You can repeat it over and over with different melodies but the “core” is simple and short . Sing “Oh Susana” or “Kalinka” or “Scarborough fair” to yourself and count the seconds before you the melody repeats.
Frankly, “popular songs being over three minutes long” is likely an anomaly in the history of humanity. What we are seeing with shorter songs is probably just a regression to the mean.
Or the bean counters in charge target the largest common denominator, shaving off the long tail of above-average sophistication with every mediocre release.
And I don't think you can totally disregard that movies cost more than they ever have to make while also looking worse than they ever have. The special effects in Pirates of the Caribbean utterly trounce newer productions that cost far more to make just for everyone to bounce around green screen stages in motion capture pajamas, and to be clear, this is not industry professionals costing too much or being bad at their jobs, it's almost solely down to the studios wanting the ability to hysterically tinker with films until the 11th hour to ensure maximum market reach.
The industry should be ashamed of itself.
We have more boredom today than ever before in the past, and the richnesses of our lives are gutted with the continuous striving against the specter of boredom.
It's all been bread and circuses since before the fall of Rome. We only strive to make something happen until we reach the point where we have everything we ever wanted, and then we don't have the first clue what to do with it.
Anyway. The tech in the movie theaters did improve by a lot since then, 3D was a fad but we get 4K, imax, Dolby Atmos, etc nowadays. But it's not as popular as back then, cost and convenience probably being important factors, but the lack of long exclusivity (it's now only weeks sometimes until a film is out on streaming) and the overflow of media nowadays isn't helping either. The last really popular film was the Marvel films and the last Avatar film, other than that it feels all a bit mediocre or unremarkable.
I wonder if that's the other factor. The 90's and early 2000s were for many people the highlight of filmmaking - this may be a generational thing. But there were years where multiple films would come out that were still remembered fondly for years or decades after.
Meanwhile, I couldn't name you a single good or standout film from the past year or years. Nothing I remember anyway. I think the combination of the LotR trilogy and the Star Wars prequels ruined films forever for a lot of people, in a good way for the former and a bad, cynical one in the latter, lol.