I think the reason it feels different now is that all the big companies are just constantly doing layoffs (at least every few months). So it always feels like layoffs are looming and everyone is at risk. Jobs used to feel safer (especially when most tech companies were growing rapidly instead of shrinking).
There’s also something to be said about the industry’s faltering after the social era, a period which largely began the degradation of Big Tech’s public image, which was worsened even more by the overcorrection into Crypto/Web3, and finally through AI - which feels just as forced as the previous era was.