Natch I was more referring to the tech/picture quality/availability of higher bitrates with faster internet/that kind of thing.
But you're right. The history of humanity is a series of amazing advancements followed by a race to the middle where everything seems safe. It's a millenia-old game of tug-of-war between art & commerce, innovation & profit margins, dreamers & schemers.
(But to be fair to humans, scalability is a bastard.)
As Sturgeon's Law famously teaches us, "Ninety Percent of Everything Is Crap." The entire reason "Golden Age Thinking" exists — i.e., "the good old days when TV/music/movies didn't suck" — is that the excellent 10% is remembered and the 90% of garbage we had to wade through is deservedly forgotten. I do take some comfort in knowing "t'was ever thus".