SV has always been heavily dependent on government spending- military or otherwise. I see no real change, other than perhaps more people are aware of the sausage making process.
The change I see is a cultural one. At its peak, the SV crowd had a very strong interest in doing cool things that could improve aspects of the world. That subcurrent still exists, but it is largely overshadowed by a stronger interest in making as much money as possible, as quickly as possible.
I dunno, I read Hackers back in the late 80s and it sure seemed like SV was chasing money... I believe Levy used the term "Croesus Mode" to describe the mental model.
Sure, there has always been that subset who is only in it for the money. The change I see is that what used to be a subset is now the dominant faction.
This matters because it affects what sorts of products come out of SV. These days, most of the products are about extracting maximal dollars from customers. In the old days, there was a genuine interest in making great products rather than products that prioritize maximize dollar extraction.
Also, the nature of the dev population has changed. These days, a very large percentage of SV devs chose that line of work specifically because it's lucrative. Before, a very large percentage of SV devs chose that line of work because they loved being devs.
At least, that's what the change looks like to me. I could be wrong. But one thing that is absolutely obvious is that SV today is very different than SV back when it was in peak form.
Well, the American tech industry as always had some big corporate players who are more than happy to sell census counting and alphabetization equipment to the third reich, and won't look too closely at what they're doing with it - so long as it's profitable and complies with local laws. So we shouldn't pretend there was some glorious golden age.
But there was a time when SV was a lot more passionate and freewheeling, and beliefs like "information wants to be free" were a lot more widely repeated.
