alt Hacker NewsWhich has led to every game needing a central server running, forcing centralization where p2p used to work great. Also how Skype was able to scale on a budget, something now blocked, forcing you to raise money for more ideas than before. Running a matrix(?) node should be as simple as clicking install and it's just there, next time you're with your friends, nfc tap or whatever and your servers talk to each other directly forever going forward. But nope, there always is a gatekeeper now and they need money and that poisons everything.
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Central servers are useful for more than just NAT hole-punching. They’re also great as a centralized database of records and statistics as well as a host for anti-cheating services and community standards enforcement.
Peer to Peer games with no central authority would be so rife with cheating that you’d only ever want to play with friends, not strangers. That sucks!
I don’t think VOIP was a major factor in game centralization. The big one was selling cosmetics (easily unlock able server-side in community servers), and to some extent being able to police voice chat more. Major game publishers didn’t want to be in the news about the game with the most slurs or child grooming or what not.