To be fair, I remember visiting my aunt's house in the mid-2000s, who had a surround sound set up her husband had set up. It required three or four remotes to work and no one but him could ever get it working. I think UX has forgotten a few generations by now.
In theory, HDMI CEC should solve a lot of those problems. Unfortunately it only introduced another buggy layer.
But that was the niche, "elite" experience. Today, a "smart TV" is the norm.
Has anybody ever been able to program a VCR ?