The internet also fundamentally changed in the middle of the rollout. End user devices stopped being directly accessible because this was a security issue, they stopped being always online because they mostly run on battery now, and IP addresses costing money became a kind of barrier to spam and abuse.

Even if we could directly address every device on the internet, you'd still mostly want to run through a middle server anyway so you can send files and messages while the receiver device is sleeping, or to sync between multiple devices.

Pretty much the only loss was people self hosting servers, but as long as you aren't behind CGNAT you can just set up DDNS and be fine. Every ISP I've been with lets you opt out of CGNAT as well as pay for a static IP.