Back in my day, we had a device that had a dedicated button for 'pause'. It worked using infrared, a simple invisible light system that doesn't need pairing or a wifi connection. The device (called a "remote control") could also run for years on a single AA battery, using little to no power when no buttons were pressed.

The downside was that it had a lot of buttons, 90% of which you don't use. It also tended to get lost a lot. And we didn't have Netflix, so either we'd have to use video tapes (which was cool, insert and hit play), or DVDs (which were a bit less usable, they usually had unskippable warnings, trailers, and some weird menu you had to get through before playing the movie / TV show). Or just watch what was on TV at the time, which worked just fine for us because we'd eat and go to bed at set times.

My tl;dr point is that things just used to be simpler and more usable. I don't like having to use an app to start stuff. I don't like the four remotes I have lying around atm either (TV, set-top box for digital television, one for the soundbar (idk why it's that big), and either a controller for the ps4 or for the apple TV. The latter two kinda fulfill the same role though, as a netflix machine.