Maybe I am self selecting, but I don't think I have seen a desktop computer or motherboard in the last 15 years without spidf over toslink or RCA. Hell, for that matter a bunch of laptops and even apple until recently included mini toslink/optical out the headphone jack.
It is certainly a difficult problem and as such, like most difficult problems, it will likely not be fixed in any meaningful manner. We will likely be talking about this exact issue in 5 years, 10 years, and 20 years from now.
Cyberspace Solarium Commission [1] created a robust and well documented roadmap for the Biden transition team to address some of these fundamental problems. IMHO, it is one of the better policy documents and has a number of really good recommendations that I believe would be extremely helpful. The #1 thing I think we could do is address accountability, who is responsible for the security of devices/software and what legal recourse should people have if the vendor doesn't adequately secure or support their products.
I think that there are a bunch of issues and one of the biggest ones is that what we say vs what we do are 2 different things. We also have issues where many of the core business practices that are commonly accepted are incompatible with building a secure and resilient infrastructure.
I don't think that it is a solvable problem if the economics stay the same.
SolarWinds is actually trading almost $2/share more than it did 1 year ago today ($15.67 v $17.23). Sure, it is down from its 52 week high ($24.34).
I would argue that SolarWinds should not be allowed to be in business in its current form, considering what a threat they have been to themselves and others in their mis-handling their software practices and subsequent breach. If an individual did what they did as an employee of the government, they would currently be in jail.
It is probably one of the most impactful national security events in our lifetimes and the impact of this event will be felt in certain areas for years or even decades.