I think the early, mid 90's were a lot more interesting time to be a programmer than now, just before the Internet explosion. Back then, a bigger percentage of the focus was on using computers to do something, solve a problem directly (as opposed to implicitly) and the computers were actually getting powerful enough to do things on a cheap basis.

People's cat pictures were a vanishingly small portion of the landscape.

As an example, cheap computing power is one of the reasons that while at the beginning of the 90's, nuclear power was considered a money losing proposition by electric utilities and everyone was trying to get out from under them but by the end of the decade, all the utilities were hanging on to their nukes for dear life and trying to figure out how to extend their licenses/service life.

Now, a much bigger percentage of the focus is simply getting information out of one spot, tranporting it to another, dolling it up w/some marketing glitz.

That's not to say that the cool stuff isn't still going on, but that it is a smaller percentage and the profession has been dumbed down significantly (hence brogrammers and all).