I understand your frustration, but the field has become too big for a single (average) person. When problems arise , you team up with someone who knows more about the issue or you learn on the spot. Nothing wrong with not knowing everything.
That's not my problem. My problem is the illusion presented that you don't need to understand the underlying infrastructure. Far too often I see infrastructure as an afterthought, secondary to the code.
What kind of organisations have you worked in? I've been lucky (?) to work in an organisation with a dedicated network/infrastructure team. My work life got a lot better when I gained more understanding of how the network was put together (vis-a-vis load balancers, DNS, data center locations etc).
I still don't have a "low level" understanding of the network I use.
I've always managed or been on infrastructure teams at other orgs; my latest gig is at a startup, and I'm the only infrastructure guy. Perhaps that is the problem.
More likely when problems arise you "team up" with someone who knows [almost] everything.
And I agree with other posters that this isn't something new. That's the separation between senior and junior specialists (and no - if one doesn't know what network latency is, that one is not a senior frontend engineer).
Fundamentals as small, compact and trivial. Everyone can get a good grasp of all the basics before going on to any "real world" coding with its diverse, needless complexity.
