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25 years ago, I replaced almost everything, every year. I'd sell the old stuff, and buy new stuff, generally only needing to put in $1-200 tops.
15 years ago my upgrade cycle had begun to stretch out. I held onto a Q6600 until the 3570K was released.
Between then and 2022, I believe I changed out the video card.
In 2022 I did another rebuild, not because my system was struggling with my use-case, but because I was moving overseas and didn't know what kind of hardware I'd have access to, and had pockets full of cash. Turns out it was unnecessary.
For many years computers were a hobby. I still pull them apart now and them, delid a CPU, play with voltages and fan speed profiles to make them a bit quieter and more frugal, but I've largely stopped seeing the point. Overclocking no longer has the returns it once had, and often when you enable it, you lose some of the optimizations you'd have if you left it stock. Year over year, we're seeing processing power improvements again, but they're no longer at the same price points - they get more expensive each year. Plus, with CPUs, a majority of the improvements are from the addition of cores. Maybe there's a 15% improvement in IPC with a new architecture, but then you get 2-3 refreshes that might add some cores or tweak clock speeds 2-4%.
Add to that, PCs are losing their dominance. Most use their phones for everything. Consoles are more capable and more flexible than they used to be. Alternatives such as ARM are entering the PC space. It is, for better or for worse, a matured industry.
I still enjoy tinkering, but it's more for nostalgia's sake than anything. I'm not enticed to pay $xxxx for a relatively minor visual improvement in the rare game I play, and my productivity software runs indistinguishably from how it ran on my 3rd gen i5.
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