Used to be family, then people became estranged from their parents and many didn't have kids. Then it was romance and marriage, but fewer people can even find those, let alone keep them into their old age. Friendship is the next in the line of "good enough" bonds people might accept to avoid completely loneliness. Of course there's always AI and pets as the new "true companions" for 2040. Readers of the Atlantic seem like exactly the sort of people who will need this copium going forward.