Abstractions are only part of the whole issue. Maybe I focused too much on that. But I'll argue that point once more.
How much complexity is actually required? What changed in software in the last 20 years so that the additional bloat and complexity is actually required? Hardware has become more powerful. This should make software less reliant on complicated optimizations and thus simpler. The opposite is happening. Why? What groundbreaking new features are we adding to software today that we didn't 20 years ago? User experience hasn't improved that much on average. In fact, measurements show that systems are responding more sluggishly on average.
Intrinsic complexity of the problems that software can solve hasn't really changed much as far as I can see. We add towers of accidental complexity on top that mostly aren't helpful. Those need to be questioned constantly. That isn't happening to the extent that it should. Web-based stuff is the poster child of that culture and it's hugely detrimental.
Backends handling tens / hundreds of thousands or more of concurrent users rather than locally deployed software on a single machine or a small server with a few 10s of users?
Mobile?
Integration with other software / ecosystems?
Real time colaboration amoung users rather than single user document based models?
Security?
Cryptography?
Constant upgrades over the web rather than shipping CDs once a year?
I'll pass on AI for the moment as it's probably a bit too recent.
How much complexity is actually required? What changed in software in the last 20 years so that the additional bloat and complexity is actually required? Hardware has become more powerful. This should make software less reliant on complicated optimizations and thus simpler. The opposite is happening. Why? What groundbreaking new features are we adding to software today that we didn't 20 years ago? User experience hasn't improved that much on average. In fact, measurements show that systems are responding more sluggishly on average.
Intrinsic complexity of the problems that software can solve hasn't really changed much as far as I can see. We add towers of accidental complexity on top that mostly aren't helpful. Those need to be questioned constantly. That isn't happening to the extent that it should. Web-based stuff is the poster child of that culture and it's hugely detrimental.