This might just be a US thing, I don’t know. But it seems like if I want to fly somewhere, the cheapest option is to choose the nonstop flight. If I pick a flight with a layover it always costs more.
I don’t think it used to be this way! Flights with stops and layovers were cheaper because of the inconvenience. What’s the point of picking one if they’re more expensive?
My understanding is that it’s related to the decline of three and four engine planes. Originally airlines preferred them over two engined planes because they were safer, had greater range, and could carry more passengers. On the other hand, they were more expensive to operate due to requiring more maintenance and fuel. Additionally, these planes were larger and couldn’t get into places that smaller twinjets could. Eventually technology improved to the point that the (literal) costs of more engines began to outweigh the benefits to airlines. These days most passenger airlines only operate twinjets and the remaining tri- and quadjets are relegated to cargo.
Up until ETOPS (aka Engines Turn Or Passengers Swim) was introduced in 1986, it was not even legal to run cross-atlantic flights to and from the U.S with twin engines.
As I understand it, point-to-point taking over from hub-and-spoke coincided with mid-size high-range airplanes like the 787. Before that, the economics of running point-to-point had trouble penciling out, since you needed fairly large aircraft to handle the distance. Hence, hub-and-spoke made sense - run small aircraft to and from hubs and then run a large long-range aircraft carrying a large amount of passengers.