I just don't buy the premise. Kids get interested in programming by being able to create things. Back in the day creating things meant getting any kind of text/ascii on the screen was an achievement.

Now, kids want to learn how to do things that look as nice or do as much as the rest of the computer (or web) features they are used to.

For those that get interested some will go back to the roots and become hackers, some will continue to work in higher level languages. I don't see the problem.