UARTs are super important still, nothing old or obsolete about that tech. It's simply still useful, and a sensible way of doing serial communication in a simple way.

The Pirate is awesome, and was rather magical when it first appeared (I bought mine in 2010), but nowadays I would just use a USB/UART adapter [1]. They're cheap as ... something cheap on Amazon, and simpler since they're special-purpose.

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=usb+uart&crid=1JQRTOTBVDDCW&spref...