The difference is that past technology still needed a man’s hand to function. There has never been a time before when man can be removed just about completely from the entire process.
We are also just about getting to the point where the amount of necessary knowledge needed to stay ahead of the robots is impossible to acquire for most people.
If there is no human demand for products, there is no need for robots.
That said, there are millions of humans now who are unemployable in ANY position except drug dealing (think Baltimore and Ferguson).
We are at a really new point in our history, but I think perhaps each successive generation thought the same thing.