The reason is probably that there are way way less devices in use now. Graphics cards are made by 2+1 companies (nvidia, amd and somewhat intel), webcams are uv

The reason is probably that there are way way less devices in use now. Graphics cards are made by 2+1 companies (nvidia, amd and somewhat intel), webcams are uvc compatible, mice and keyboards are "driverless", there are less and less printers and scanners in use, and even those are wireless, noone uses digital cameras with need for gphoto2 anymore (either mobile phones or pro equipment and a card reader), flash drivers are all the same, soundcards are mostly onboard now, screens are all the same, etc... so no critical mass to bother companies anymore. Back in the time you had a bunch of soundcars, palm pilots with activesync, lpt printers, usb printers, scsi printers, zip, jazz drives, etc. The only pain currently are unstable wifi drivers, because there are still quite a few chipset makers) and well.. custom equipment used by a handful of people, such as op here.