Worth noting it seems like didn't always used to be this way. My impression is researchers had much fewer distractions in the early 20th century. It's not surprising how much ground-breaking progress was made at the time when you see it this way.
If you stay out of the “news stream” you can pursue your ideas deeply and even if someone else is working on something similar, you will have your own unique take on it.
It seems naive to think that getting on those shoulders in this modern age won’t create a brand new batch of low hanging fruit to pick if you’re willing to put the effort in
Arguably this is just one interpretation, the other being "we haven't made fundamental progress since that time period".
In my limited understanding as a mathematician, there's definitely room for progress: settling the measurement problem, or formulating a theory of quantum gravity, say.
It's a bad situation for tech people to have to deal with the FUD of all other departments because those departments want to present themselves as knowledgeable and contributing to the technical aspects, when they are not able to at all.