In addition to what else has been said, we have more ready-made solutions we've converged on, which pushes the scope for creativity higher in the stack. For example, we don't have to hack up a low-level communications system because we can just put JTAG parts on and use something everyone understands. We don't have to figure out how to allow multiple users to share the same network without stepping on anyone else's toes because we have TCP/IP and decades' worth of cleverness poured into things like creating a transparent, securely-encrypted tunnel over that protocol suite.
So our cleverness is inside the applications, getting stuff at the top of the stack to do things it wasn't intended to do by combining relatively high-level pieces. I've done that, I'm sure a lot of us here have done that.
So our cleverness is inside the applications, getting stuff at the top of the stack to do things it wasn't intended to do by combining relatively high-level pieces. I've done that, I'm sure a lot of us here have done that.