First, demos are not dead, and not even stagnating. Every day, 4 or 5 new ones are added to Steam. If all you count are current gen AAA titles, then let's not forget Dragon Quest Builders 2, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, The Evil Within 2, Hitman 2016, Shadow of Mordor, almost every Bethesda/ID published game (DOOM, Wolfenstein 2/Youngblood, etc), the Quantic Dream PC ports, The Surge, the Prey reboot, even Dishonored 2 got a demo, which no one thought would happen.
Second, the Steam refund policy was NEVER MEANT as a substitute for a demo. In fact, the terms of service explicitly state that using the refund mechanic for such purposes is against the very policy. If we choose to blindly and collectively believe that Steam Refunds and Demos are one and the same, then we're no better than those who initially swore Oblivion's Horse Armor DLC would never catch on (which was cosmetic by the way), who always trusted games would be released bug-tested and stable without needed patches, who were fine with micro-transactions and loot boxes in free-to-play games, as they would SURELY never pop up in full priced store-bought titles.
The same thing's happened to the internet in general, by the way. Remember those 2000's internet days, where you were always encouraged to use an alias and NOT your real name, where MMOs you subscribed to made it clear their staff will NEVER email you, for your safety, etc. Now look at where we are, willingly telling every new social media site our full name, where we live, what our birthday is, and what are credit card numbers are. FACEBOOK has our credit card numbers.
I'm going off on a little bit of a tangent, but my basic point is, demos are still here, and big ones still frequently pop up not much less often than they used to. The only thing that's changed is our perception of it all, as well as our cynicism. If demos ever DO stop cold turkey though, we only have our short memories to blame. Eventually, the big companies may see that we already believe there are no more demos, and will absolutely stop releasing them just to make our claims accurate while leaving them without the extra work on cutting up a demo for us in the first place. Win-win from the developer's angle.
I'm done. Just wanted to rant a little into the void, is all. Say what you will, I've made my incessant babbling known. c:
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