I've been collecting since the late 70s.
I'm actually very tired of keeping on being involved with the time-consuming, frustrating and very limited old-school approach of mail order, shops and convention trips, and making grindingly-slow progress. I suppose I've simply run out of patience, and, now I'm in my fifties, realising the impracticability of getting anywhere near to completion by persisting with this, exacerbated of course by the current speculator market. Also, there are my health issues to consider, which make me want to do something else with comics that's far more relaxed and fuss-free. And, I get a much greater sense of progress and closure after reading a book collection or a digital file. It's enough for me, and better than bashing my head against a brick wall, again and again.
So, I don't believe that contemporary instant gratification is necessarily the main driving force for such a transition ; I'm just happily not chasing this particular rainbow any more.