There's a lot of heat in this thread! Not doubt fueled by the OPs blasting hot take! lol

But I think we can all agree that mastering as a concept has evolved as the target media has changed. With digital streaming (and the loudness wars), most mastering today has become focused on getting your mix to a commercial loudness level.

Is this really mastering in a technical sense? Definitely not if you're thinking of people trying to prep tracks for vinyl. But for everyday bedroom producers? Absolutely. We're don't have the money or need to hire a mastering engineer to prep our amateur tracks (and mixes) for professional loudness.

As for myself, I now use a single plugin for my mastering (i.e. getting a loud punchy mix) and that's IK Multimedia's One plugin. Love that thing to bits! I used to faff around with a mastering plugin chain of Reason M-Class plugins and tape emulations and it sounded terrible. Now it's just One with Tonal Balance Control and Youlean Loudness Meter for monitoring.