it's just that phone hardware has gotten so good that decent software rarely (feels like at least) pushes it to the limit for more than fractions of a second at a time.

I second this, processing time and network speeds have been getting better over the years. The difference in speed in Chrome and Firefox is a "little" noticeable but that's why I don't care and use Fennec as my go to browser everyday. I mean, it's better than the days where it will take more than 20 seconds to load a page.

Technology has gotten better, all kinds of people have access to the internet these days and use it to learn something, or watch something they like. But it's kinda sad that big tech companies have started to be greedy and try to either milk them for money or become a monopoly themselves.