As a video game developer, I can add some perspective (N=1 if you will). Most top-20 game franchises spawned years ago on much weaker hardware, but their current installments demand hardware not even a few years old (as recommended/intended way to play the game). This is due to hyper-bloating of software, and severe downskilling of game programmers in the industry to cut costs. The players don't often see all this, and they think the latest game is truly the greatest, and "makes use" of the hardware. But the truth is that aside from current-generation graphics, most games haven't evolved much in the last 10 years, and current-gen graphics arrived on PS4/Xbox One.
Ultimately, I don't know who or what is the culprit of all this. The market demands cheap software. Games used to cost up to $120 in the 90s, which is $250 today. A common price point for good quality games was $80, which is $170 today. But the gamers absolutely decry any game price increases beyond $60. So the industry has no option but to look at every cost saving, including passing the cost onto the buyer through hardware upgrades.
Ironically, upgrading a graphics card one generation (RTX 3070 -> 4070) costs about $300 if the old card is sold and $500 if it isn't. So gamers end up paying ~$400 for the latest games every few years and then rebel against paying $30 extra per game instead, which could very well be cheaper than the GPU upgrade (let alone other PC upgrades), and would allow companies to spend much more time on optimization. Well, assuming it wouldn't just go into the pockets of publishers (but that is a separate topic).
It's an example of Scott Alexander's Moloch where it's unclear who could end this race to the bottom. Maybe a culture shift could, we should perhaps become less consumerist and value older hardware more. But the issue of bad software has very deep roots. I think this is why Carmack, who has a practically perfect understanding of software in games, doesn't prescribe a solution.