With photographs it was never true. This is the classical text on it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Work_of_Art_in_the_Age_of_...

But it isn't seeing, right? I mean, seeing a digital image of a thing is totally different from seeing the actual thing.

A digital image is a representation/abstraction/map kind of thing. And then a little bit of mental shorthand inside your head makes a connection and declares the thing and the representation-of-the-thing to be one and the same.

But it isn't the same thing. Not by a million miles.

It's a socially-accepted mindfuck is what it is.