But then Y2K was presented as the end of the world, with supposedly nothing being ready, and the world at large was going to experience catastrophic supply chain failures, people would be dying in hospitals, etc.
Then Y2K turned out to be a nothing burger (I'm not saying some systems didn't misbehave left and right but in the grand scheme of things, it was a non event).
I'm pretty sure it's going to the same with Y2038.
Y2K was not a disaster precisely because there was panic and concern, and programmers spent much effort fixing it, and it was fixed due to prioritization of resources & effort.
"it's going to the same with Y2038" is like saying we can fold our umbrella in a rainstorm because we haven't gotten wet yet.
When Y2k happened, it also seemed a little ridiculous to laypeople because they thought, "Surely we don't depend on computers that much," and there was still an institutional memory of doing important business on paper. Nobody is under that illusion now.
Then Y2K turned out to be a nothing burger (I'm not saying some systems didn't misbehave left and right but in the grand scheme of things, it was a non event).
I'm pretty sure it's going to the same with Y2038.