Until perhaps 10 years ago, drum brakes were standard as the rear brakes of almost every car. They lasted pretty much the lifetime of the car.
You need to go back more than that. In the 80s nearly every car had rear drum brakes, that phased out in the early 90s or so. Only the very cheapest cars had drums past that timeframe.
> They lasted pretty much the lifetime of the car.
Having owned a few drum braked cars (including all four wheel drums), not really. You still need to change them as they wear out, it's just a lot more work than disk brake pads which can be swapped out in a few minutes.
The rear brakes do a lot less work than the fronts, particularly on smaller lightweight cars (the kind that still had rear drums in the 90s) so in that sense yes, those rear drums lasted a good while (but certainly not the life of the car).
If you put front drum brakes on a fast & heavy car, you'll be wearing them out pretty quick.
They are more efficient (read: safety) and much easier to maintain.
Rear brakes are almost redundant on entry level cars except for the parking brake. You can just disconnect them and not notice any significant change in handling.
Last time I had to touch drum brakes was in 1991 and I'm very (very very) happy about that. Drum brakes are a maintenance nightmare I never again want to experience. I'd rather adjust carburator jets all night before working on drum brakes again.