> when did people forget how to run a baremetal server ?

My opinion on this: docker sort of changed the game here. It sort of enabled a lot of people to get a "new and fresh" level of abstraction to not bother about bare metal.

As an example, I work in company where most consultants are doing DevOps and k8 is big part of that.

What made me consider that? I've been told multiple times that "you know your stuff" when I mention some kernel or userland feature that container approach provides.