Exactly, music is absolutely incredible these days. In any genre you pick, you will find very inspired, innovative and beautiful examples.
Some people who say "music is bad these days" try to contrast pop music with 18th/19th century Western classical music. But that makes absolutely no sense because there are heaps over heaps of beautiful classical music composed in 21st century. You just need to go out there and find them. E.g. there are Unsuk Chin, Jennifer Higdon, Fred Lerdahl, Michael Torke, James Yannatos etc... There is no shortage of beautiful classical music produced today, if you care to look outside of household names.
Similarly, when people contrast pop music with classic rock (e.g. mid-to-late 20th century Rock and Hard Rock), I think they're once again failing to find the right kind of aesthetics. There are Greta Van Fleet, Heart, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club etc... All kinds of artists who make great Rock music. But since they're not mainstream anymore, they're not exposed to masses as much as Rolling Stones, Queen, Led Zeppelin etc...
Sure, modern rock might be technically as good as classic rock, but rock doesn't rule the music world anymore. Honestly music doesn't really rule the entertainment world either.
I would completely disagree. "Rich enough" is mostly meaningless, there are a 1000 different subsystems running under this that make a slight deviation in a product increase in price massively. From laws and regulations on consumer products and housing rules, to what gets shipped overseas in massive container ships.
Go by a 'decent' wooden end table, it may cost you around $1000. Now go have a custom end table made to your specifications. Do not be surprised if it costs you an order of magnitude more and takes a year for an artisan to produce.
Modern costs are low because of mass production. When you can create 5 grey SKUs that cover 98% of the market and mass produce thousands to millions of them all of a sudden looking at producing a 'weird red' SKU is going to eat into your profits considerably unless you can recoup that by charging a much higher cost for that product.
Honestly I meant to say dresser as they commonly start at $1kish for a decent one, but end table still works.
And yes, the past was much more ornate because architecture was a vector of communication -- administrative/state buildings and religious edifices in particular obviously. Which, as a side effect, produced beauty still revered millennia after its creation. So maybe we should ask: what's modern ideology saying? And what does it says aesthetically? The answer is for all to see, and for all to debate.
A lot of what gets created is for functional purposes, and it has always been that way. As time goes on, the functional stuff gets torn down and replaced and anything that's appealing or well-built gets to stay. This gives the impression that the past was full of ornate, well-constructed wonders. But is and always has been an illusion
There were probably people 200, 300, 1000 years ago who thought "Everything is so ugly these days" or didn't care. It's not about what buildings look like, it's about how we live our lives