Comment by simonw

It's true that it is worth considering that things are possible now that were not possible 7 years ago.

The reason I keep on bringing up 2017 is that it helps demonstrate the psychological angle here. People are absolutely convinced this is happening today. Many of those people were equally convinced back when this was clearly impossible, convinced based on the exact same reasoning (their own personal anecdotal experiences).

So the 2017 thing helps illustrate the lack of credibility of those personal anecdotes, independently of the issue of how possible this might be today compared with the past.