Eh, there was a ton of frivolous work being done. That has long been the majority of jobs in the computer world.

For example, you could have been dealing with COBOL banking software. Or order management software. Or even spreadsheet software.

The difference being that all the tools were a lot worse and everything was built from the ground up so it took a lot longer.

Exciting stuff was about as common as it is today, and the reason you aren't doing exciting stuff today is likely because you know that 90% of those companies will end up failing and might not actually pay you. The most successful of those companies will likely do something like selling insurance adjustment software.