The big studios have been putting all their eggs in the most profitable basket in the last few years, which is huge action-packed franchises that consume record-breaking budgets. The mid-budget summer movie as we knew them up to 2015 or so (think Hangover, Superbad, Bridesmaids,…) have been dying out as a result, unfortunately. But the cracks of this model are now starting to show due to many “big” franchise productions bombing at the box office this summer.
This may be true, but I think the main reason for less “obvious” baddies in modern movies is simply that they kind of went out of fashion from a culture standpoint. The ways how stories are told and how world is portrayed/perceived in art and media is heavily dependent on the people who live in it. Post-modernism is en vogue because we’ve shifted our world view from simple good vs. bad towards recognizing that the world we live in is much more nuanced/complex. “Sometimes the villain is in your head” or “nothing really matters, everything sucks one way or another” are world views that reflect our modern western culture a lot more since we are so much more connected to the world through the internet.
That said, post/meta-modernism is just one side of this. I’m sure there are plenty of commercial reasons to make toothless, non-offending movies as well. Also, movies like Top Gun: Maverick prove that the classic approach to storytelling (good guys vs bad guys) can still work and make a shitton of cash (although they didn’t go all in on who the enemy actually is).