It’s always weird to me that we’re living in the only time in thousands of years where we don’t have royalty in most societies. You could have been born in any place in any time since human civilization started and you would likely have some form of nobility ruling over you.
Oh, we do have royalty these days too. But think something on the lines of Serene Doges and Italian Signorias of the Renaissance era. Private citizens amassing enough wealth and power to control governments not only during their lifetimes, but the lifetimes of their children as well, not unlike Sforza in Milan or the Medicis.
Bollywood stars - sometimes the literally get away with murder.
We still have a relatively small elite ruling over us, we just don't actually know who they are anymore. Whether or not that's progress is a matter of opinion I suppose.
FWIW, I first learned about radio and electronics from an ex-royal! When in the fourth grade I started taking apart radios and breaking them, my father took me, along with the broken radio, to the local radio repair place (that may have been the only one at the time in Ahmedabad, India). The owner was an old man of 70 or so. He taught me the very basic stuff and helped me build a crystal radio and soon I graduated to building fancier stuff! Everyone called him Bapu (father). Later on I learned he was a prince from a small princely state in the Western Gujarat. India forcibly merged all 500+ such principalities in the Union once it became independent. These princes had a "princely purse", a govt allowance, to maintain their status for a while but that ended in 1956. Bapu had a degree in radio and electronics from UK so he set up the repair shop which happened to be within the walking distance from my home. When I met him he had no royal airs; he was more like a kindly grandfather who had infinite patience for a skinny undisciplined but inquisitive kid!