Its easy to think of it similar to something like computer hardware or game consoles. There is always newer and better hardware coming out. And the newer stuff is always more efficient (performance/watt) than the old stuff. But the user's expectations increase as well, so new hardware doesn't just aim to be more efficient, it aims to be more powerful. Then that sets a new baseline for expectations.
So a lot of these LLM and other types of models are very much like that. The newer models definitely bring improvements in efficiency and performance. But no one wants to sit still, they have to keep pushing the envelope to make them better and more powerful.
Without the Internet, you had to find other ways of entertaining yourself. Regular toys and board games and stuff were played with a lot. As an only child, I would sometimes play my board games by myself, acting as 2 players (yeah, sad I know). I remember getting lots of activity books and coloring books when I was really young. Then as I got older I read a lot of magazines and books. The Readers Digest was kept in the bathroom, and I would read jokes or stories from it while on the toilet. Things like Legos could keep you busy for hours. I got a Nintendo and it consumed most of my time. The games were simple, but tended to be difficult, and you would just play it over and over and over again. On Fridays after school you could go to the video store to rent a movie or game as some weekend entertainment. Going to the movie theater seemed to be reasonably priced back then. There were arcade games all over the place, like at the movie theater, inside convenience stores, even in the pizza hut. We used to actually go to the pizza hut and sit down at a table to eat, it was fun. Before cable or satellite TV, there were only like 3 channels, and they went off at night.