Sure doesn't align with the experience I had or any of my tech friends had in the UK in the post-Y2K bust. The only person I know who did "just fine" had, through sheer luck, joined a huge corporate 6 months before bust. Yes there was a lot of incompetent garbage that got cleared out too. Some were laughably bad. But for decent folks...
The contract market effectively disappeared for 2-4yrs+. (Good luck going back to perm). A friend who was CTO of a "best place to work.." SME watched them shrink from ~180 people to 10 or so. When he exited he was on 1/3 the rate.
Then there was the friend, who was a truly excellent developer, who had his home repossessed as he had effectively zero income for 3+ years. He got out of IT completely in the end. Another buddy, who was a little older, took early retirement and his wife went full time (non-IT). Or another friend who disappeared at home repossession, never heard of since.
Then there was the after effects of all the ex seniors, contractors and CTO chasing everything they could do right down to junior roles just to pay the bills.
Quite a few ended up tiding over in something far beneath them on half or less salary. Many took a 5-15 year hit on career taking years to get back to similar seniority (often pay never recovered). There was perhaps 5 years of take abnything you can get and keep your head down. Hirers only look at the previous role and rate for "dev" that was you surviving, not the ones before of CTO and years of lead. Ex-contractors or ex-founders are often frowned on.
That was for the folks at the decent end of the bell curve. The types that were always learning.