I don't understand what you're trying to say. Of course the effort to include the library in the project and keep it up to date has an impact on the decision whether I use it or whether I just roll my own. There is a reason that my Rust projects have dozens of dependencies whereas in C++ I basically restrict myself to boost or other header-only libraries.
50% of the popularity of modern languages like golang and rust comes from the fact that building and dependency management is light years ahead of older languages.
Your original argument was that the ease of dependency management doesn't change programming or the act of programming. I feel it encourages a compartmentalized approach to writing programs, pulling in dependencies as needed rather than relying on a giant library like Boost. Thus it does actually change the "act of programming", which is a vague term that can mean anything.
This is not mentioning all the upsides of having a easy build system from easy learning and community standpoints.
