Well said. Is there some area of the internet / web / tech that's full of curiosity and exploration today? My answer 10 years ago was MAKE magazine, but that era is over now. Maybe people are just smug about everything these days.
1. Google nuked Reader at the same time Facebook declared war on the open web. I follow this kind of stuff on blogs but a lot of people definitely shifted to social media.
2. The field is maturing in some ways, and a lot of open source energy moved into companies. That means that small projects are competing with Facebook for contributors and attention, and that there is less low-hanging fruit. A cool wearable hack now has to do something an Apple Watch, etc. doesn’t.
3. A lot of younger people are worried about things like climate change. Clean tech seems to have a lot of the people who a generation ago might have been doing web things.