As a retrotech nerd I don't dislike cheap powerful microcontrollers, ubiquitous internet connectivity, LEDs, and LCDs/OLEDs, I just dislike how many problems they solve.

There were so many interesting complicated solutions for different technical problems... that these days are just all replaced with "it has an esp32 and small touchscreen"

Which is great, in a way. It makes it easy to solve a lot of problems.
"how do I control the fan in my room?"
"the power outlet is on the wifi and you can send it a HTTPS request from an app"

That's simple and powerful and cheap... But it's not really all that interesting, since so many things get solved the same way.

How does my thermostat work? Is it a bimetallic strip and a mercury tilt-switch, combined with a clever rotational temperature setting mechanism that adjusts the activation point of the switch?

No... It's a little microcontroller running Linux that's connected to the wifi and has a touchscreen.

How's it different from my smart outlet or my router or my mouse or my smart soldering iron or my watch?

It's got different sensors and different relays. That's about it.

And sure, there's a lot of cool no applications enabled by the fact that it only costs like 10-20$ to embed a Linux computer with a touchscreen and a wifi connection into anything. There's a lot of stuff that was simply impossible to build (at least at a reasonable price) a decade or two ago.

But those things we're building are just less interesting, internally.

What's inside this smart device?
Oh, it's an ARM chip, a wifi/Bluetooth module, and a little LVDS LCD.
What a surprise.

The other day I pulled an LCD module off a smart woodworking power tool and plugged it into a portable gaming system. It worked perfectly. I didn't need any adapters.

It's a little weird that you can go out and buy a computer, a Gameboy, a telephone, a camera, a light bulb, and a power strip.

And if you get home and open them up, they're all running ARM chips.

It's like the opposite of the "when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" problem.

We've invented a few hammers that are just too good at doing everything, so we no longer need screwdrivers or drills or table saws.

So the toolbox got smaller and more boring. It's mostly just the same few tools over and over again.

Great if you just need to build a table.
Less great if you were excited for the tools themselves.

I almost wrote that as "if you are a tool enthusiast" but that sounds... Euphemistic.

And to be clear, I don't mean this to be a general issue. For the vast majority of people, this is a good thing.

But I'm a reverse engineer. So much of what I do is taking things apart to see how they work.