In my opinion fishing has changed out of all recognition over my lifetime. I stopped fishing temporarily around 1976 or so. I cant be more exact than that. I started again around 2001 - 2, which is around the time I started posting on here. I had a different name then, and I have been through 3 email addresses since. Finding FM was, as SV said in another current thread, a godsend for me. I learned such a massive amount in such a short time! I knew nothing of carp fishing, or boilies, or pellets, or carbon fibre rods, or even smooth running fixed spool reels. All I knew was breadcrumb groundbait, maggots and worms, and fibreglass or split cane rods. I have yet to knowingly meet a single member of FM as pressure of work completely prevents me from attending any fish-ins. I have to work like the very devil to make fishing time: such is the life of a design & technology teacher these days.
I was always an avid reader and when I was young I read **** Walker and Fred J Taylor et al. But being young, hard up with a pregnant wife, I simply could not spend any money on fishing. When I was at school my poor overworked mother provided basic tackle and bait, somehow, and I was able to join a local club as a junior member, with excellent waters on the upper severn.
One thing that has made a massive contribution to my fishing experience was getting a driving licence and a car - neither of which I had at the time I gave up.
We have all [or most of us] become richer so many of us. including me, have a vanload of tackle. I used to have one rod, and that was that.
To cut a long story short, fishing has changed in direct proportion to the changes in everyday life. That will be the case even since 1989, ie 20 years ago. Virtually one-species commercial fisheries have only become viable because of increased mobility, and the explosion in tackle and baits follow from more dosh.