I would say, "probably."
Much of the "no PC death" trend is all about the types of games run today.
Putting on my adventure designer hat, we gave this area a lot of thought. We concluded that while players do have MMO expectations that were not present in the days of D&D yore, and while that certainly adds to the "pressure" of the DM to cuddle their PCs, there are a lot of factors at work.
As discussed above, in 5E, there is a de-emphasis in followers and henchmen (it doesn't help that the premier 3rd Party product for this rule-set, Strongholds and Followers, abstracts retainer survivability to the point it's a separate system to keep track of). So without the AD&D and 2E "mule," PC death in a dungeon, by the very design of the 5E system, it becomes difficult to recover, game-wise, of a PC in the middle of the game session.
This trend has been going on for some time; 5E is just the latest expression of it. Pathfinder 1E, super-popular before 5E, doesn't have an old school follower/henchmen mechanic either, made worse that Pathfinder is a character-customization bonanza of choices. Death of a 1E 8th level, carefully designed PC is painful because not only did the player carefully tweak the PC, they had a carefully laid out roadmap of what that PC looked like in the future. Half the fun in Pathfinder PC creation is playing the metagame of Mathfinder.
Then, in 5E, the design around challenging encounters does not come from the Dungeon Master's Guide even after all this time. The DMG is a handy reference. It doesn't help DMs design challenging encounters. It tries--but fails. Spectacularly.
But, if we dig deeper, the lack of a PC death is a systemic attribute landing squarely on the DM. Because of the Storytelling Trend(TM) inside the game session, as opposed to outside the game session, DMs, supported by players, compose narratives to "tell a story" (is this sounding familiar, heh). And in your carefully crafted story, the most disturbing thing that could happen is PC Death. Is the DM a Referee of the game world? Or is he a storyteller?
Show me a game world where there is PC death, and I'm willing to bet that's a game world that has player agency for realsies. A campaign world designed to support a story the DM is trying to tell by its very nature is antagonistic towards that agency.