As a web designer since 1999, I have an entirely different experience it seems , and design usually isn’t well respected. EVERYONE has an opinion on design .. especially business stakeholders.

I was a victim of the dot com crash and was laid off twice in 2001 , it was bleak times

I worked at a Fortune 500 company and at a massive college bookstore e-commerce company in the 2000s , and especially at the bookstore company, design was not respected

I jokingly called the IT department Dr No.. they would never want to implement any of my design solutions