I felt a similar way about video games after learning about databases. Every action I did in the game was less real/meaningful because it was a just a db transaction.
This resonates. There was a moment in history when, all of a sudden, everything was expected to be built on top of some framework, instead of solving it yourself. 2005-2007 timeframe. Felt disempowering, I guess that's the word. ChatGPT has that same quality.