[quakenul]

Mastering is in a way comparable to capitalism. You can certainly try and be nice about it but pushing harder will usually get you further, because most people care more about one aspect than all the others aspects combined. In capitalism it is getting a great product for a great price. In mastering, it is loudness.

Loudness is a bastard. There is a reason, why all the pros are usually very, very careful about level matching when doing any sort of audio comparisons. Even when you know that louder can easily fool you into thinking something is better (which most listeners don't), you're still susceptible, if you don't counter act it. Wanna convince a recording artist in the studio it's great? Turn up those big speakers. Instant gratification.

When it comes to music consumption I like to think this is not really a problem: The sound of compression and distortion is the sound of current music and there is nothing inherently bad about it. Older generations will tend to oppose any new musical trend for various reasons, which all end up being subjective. The younger generations that grow up on this new sound do not care about brickwall limiting, because there is nothing to fucking care about.

Music production has been and forever will a mix of mostly people copying other people and flowing with the stylistic currents while adding a little something themselves. Sometimes something radical will happen. Mostly not. If you wanna stay relevant you go with the former and keep reaching for the later. Pretty much the same, as with coding or design.