I'm not sure if the actual condom use rate is lower (I wouldn't be surprised) but in my experience the upfront non-condom attitudes is staggering and way higher than 10 years ago. Tech, attitudes, PrEP have shifted culture and depressingly for me lowers match rates from an already tiny population in my experience by more than 50% of guys on hook up apps !
Condom usage has been dropping for decades. It began dropping before ARVs were discovered in the 90s, and it's steadily decreased in the years before PrEP was discovered as well. There are a lot of well-studied reasons for this.
So yes, you're right that fewer people are using condoms today than they were 10 years ago, but the correlation runs the other way. The search for a different prevention tool (which resulted in PrEP) was motivated by the fact that people have realized for decades that condoms were not going to be a viable long-term solution for addressing the spread of sexually-transmitted HIV.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna642161
Lol there’s no cure for syphillis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, hep b, genital herpes, etc.
The recent year over year increase in STD rates in the US has been very well documented. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna904311
Each and everyone disease you listed here can be cured. Example, Syphilis - https://www.cdc.gov/std/syphilis/lab/default.htm
May never happen [0], but one can wish. Although it doesn't have a cure, the treatability, prevalence, and general harmlessness of herpes make it less of an issue than the "curable" STDs. Most doctors don't even bother testing for it [1].
[0] https://www.healthline.com/health-news/why-we-still-dont-hav... [1] https://www.cdc.gov/std/herpes/screening.htm
general harmlessness of herpes
You said there's "no cure." That's different. Reducing frequencies of a disease for which there is literally no cure in exchange for higher frequencies of a disease for which there is emerging antibiotic resistance is still a good trade.
The article you cite regarding rising STD rates claims the cause is "a decline in funding for state and local agencies working on prevention" as well as "an extreme lack of awareness about STDs and sexual health" and "doctors are not screening and testing for these diseases and patients [not knowing] they need to ask to be tested" [1]. The only link to HIV stated is "people are not afraid of dying from HIV," not a link to prep.
Source? (If frequencies of curable STDs are rising while those of incurable ones are falling, that would be a good trade.)