I've been in the tech industry for 20 years. I undertook an IT degree in 2004 (for microprocessor architecture) and another in 2014 (for software engineering).

Both times I observed three distinct styles of student. The first were those who heard they could make big money in IT. They didn't have any interest in the field, knew little to nothing about computers, and massively underestimated the difficulty of the course work. Very few of these made it past first year.

The second group were the "enthusiasts", the kind of people who ran their group's local LAN party every month and own an ethernet hub. The kind who reformat their PC every 6 weeks to keep it running fast. They built their own PC when they were 16. These kind think first year is a breeze, and don't even read the text book, but are quickly out of their depth in second year.

Finally are the autists. These are the ones who you can just tell they have a deep special interest in the field. You ask them a question about metaprogramming in Python, or database denormalization and they talk your ear off for an hour. These people read the whole textbook in the first week of class. They correct the professor when he gets something wrong (but politely, by email, after class).

My point is, in my experience, there are always some percentage of neurotypicals and those who are motivated by the money in every year, and has been for more than 20 years. I don't think it's getting more prevalent. Maybe now due to higher levels of diagnosis and increasing social awareness, it's easier to spot the autists, and perhaps due to the AI boom, the money chasers are easier to spot too.