It often is. The concept of "gatekeeping" becoming well known and something people blindly rail against was a huge mistake. Not everything is for everyone, and "gatekeeping" is usually just maintaining standards.

Ideally the standard would just be someone's genuine interest in a project or a hobby. In the past, taking the effort to write code often was sufficient proof of that.

AI agent coding has introduced to writing software a sort of interaction like what brands have been doing to social media.