I'm not quite as old as the grandparent poster, and I understand his position and I don't think it comes from a place of superiority - not so much a "I loved Metallica before you did", but "I loved this at a time when looked down upon". I can easily see how the two can get conflated.
When I was a kid in the 70-80s, any one who was good with computers was a geek. Not the kind of cool/smart kid geek that folks think about now. We were the downcast, the picked on, we were the bottom of society. We loved computers more than we loved people.
So while, yes there were some who weren't that good, for the most part folks were programmers because they loved the challenge, loved the creativity of it, and loved seeing what new tech came next AND were willing to pay the social cost. Once it was popular and the social cost disappeared, it naturally attracted a more broad scope of folks. And once the money was good, it would attract the folks that were only attracted to the money, leading to a markedly wider distribution of ability.
But I see it as a net positive personally; I'm no longer consider the downcast, people have a respect for what I can do - and with the rise of popularity there is a much much larger pool of people who are willing to consider it, many of which are really good at it.