That is one answer. Another possibility (the one I prefer, since this is mere speculation anyway) is that we are early.

We could be late too, it hasn't even been 200 years since we're technologically capable.

The universe is physically big, which means we'd have a hard time finding life even if it was going on at the same time as us, but add time to the equation and it's game over. There could have been a star trek tier civilisation next door that died 1m years ago and we would probably never know

Early as in we may have developed before any other civilizations? That's interesting. We're speculating of course, but what would explain us being the first after so much time – 13.8 billion years?