EDIT: Enshittification, also known as platform decay, is a process in which two-sided online products and services decline in quality over time. Initially, vendors create high-quality offerings to attract users, then they degrade those offerings to better serve business customers, and finally degrade their services to both users and business customers to maximize short-term profits for shareholders.
There’s no way to answer this really. Depends on what you’re referring to. The actual technology is pretty great right about now, or at least a few years back before the RAMpocalype. The accessibility to technology is high, the learning curve is pretty low and Ui pretty good no matter what OS you choose. Little troubleshooting is required. You don’t need antivirus, just best practices for app sources and to update your OS regularly. Internet connections are fast. Pirating is easy and plentiful if you want to dodge DRM bullshit.
The internet culture as a whole is garbage now though. Privacy is worse than Big Brother could ever hope for. Trying to exploit people with technology is at an all-time high. Selling licenses that can be taken back at any time, attaching internet to devices that havw no business needing an internet connection that inevitably break. Drop shipping garbage even on bigger sites. Social media was pretty fun at first, at least forums were. Now it is cancer. Ai is melting people’s brains and the atmosphere.
If you want to average out the decline of those completely disparate things, sure, late 00s early 10s is where it is at. Corporate OSs like Windows 7 and Snow Leopard were at their leak. iPhone and Android were good enough but nobody demanded accessibility to you with them. Social media wasn’t COMPLETE cancer yet. Lower component pricing especially for DIY PC gaming.
But the thing is, it’s not inevitable. We can have the better tech without shittiness. Tech is neutral. It is PEOPLE that ruin it. If we stop rewarding influencers and enforce regulations upon corporations to stop abuse of Ai, increase worker’s rights, and stop surveillance, we’d be just fine. We’re here because we have allowed the slow decline of western culture with its emphasis on personal freedoms and rule of the people. Now it is just “freedom for me to fuck you over with no consequences”. The solution is not going back in time, it is fixing our bullshit.