I think I was unclear. I’m not saying now is better. What I meant is there was a short period, perhaps late 90s to early 2010s, when electronic devices became sophisticated and reliable enough to “just work” in perpetuity, but before everything was internet connected and subscription-based.

Cars are perhaps the best example. Before this that time, you’d expect to do much more maintenance and you’d be impressed to get 100k miles out of it. Now it’s not unusual to get to 200k miles or more, but increasingly you have to deal with firmware upgrades and pay a monthly fee for advanced features.

Aside from this brief period, devices either required more maintenance and replacement (pre-90s) or updates and subscriptions (now).