These days aren't gone for good though. Look on Steam how many games offer LAN support or dedicated servers for instance (server browsers are a different topic unfortunately)
It's just that gamers in the past have voted too weakly against the managed MP infrastructure in some subgenres and triple A moats... Don't know whether anyone is still protesting this or whether newer generations don't even know what's happened here.
I don't really buy that "vote with your wallet" argument. It's not like you really have a choice. People can't decide to buy their favorite game with our without an open infrastructure. For example of you want to play StarCraft 2 on LAN with your friends or even only a similar game you just can't. It does not exist. If there is only one candidate then it's not really a vote, is it?
Well, more generally you want to hold the (usually big) devs/publishers accountable to the shit they pull to select against bad stewards of the art form. One way is withholding purchases.
Unfortunately a big chunk of unopinionated consumers will eat what they're served (FIFA, BF lol) and this encourages publishers to push P2W, gambling or fast iteration, which splits communities. And long-lived community-owned MP infrastructure is not particularly profitable either...
That said, a more major driver of not offering dedicated servers may simply be the lack of necessity because using cloud infrastructure is pretty sophisticated nowadays and controlling it yourself simplifies development and deployment.
Luckily the market is diverse, so overall I'm not too worried. I trust that organic discovery and good stewards keep MP gaming (and modded gaming) as I have known it alive.
It's just that gamers in the past have voted too weakly against the managed MP infrastructure in some subgenres and triple A moats... Don't know whether anyone is still protesting this or whether newer generations don't even know what's happened here.