Well now ... a mish-mash of thoughts will follow as they come to me.
It's easier for people to show off their photographic 'skills' nowaday, resulting in a much larger audience.
The quality of some pictures you see online makes you ashamed to be part of the human race.
EVERYTHING has a camera built into it, some better than others.
In ye olde days, a camera did ONE thing, it took photos, and by definition it was perfect for the job. That said, the 'failure rate' % for a good picture probably wasn't too dissimilar to now, except you didn't automatically share your blurry, badly framed holiday snaps instantly with 30 gazillion people.
There were differing qualities of 'film' cameras, just as there are digital ones. I've seen better photos taken with a 3.2MP Fuji than I have with 12MP iThingy.
Ease of use and sharing has given people, who unfortunately have no interest in photography, the means to share their ''lol, look at my out-of-focus cat'' photos.
Argghhh, I'm on a rant ... need a beer. :-(