But if things have been getting better for 200 years non-stop, then that supports my point (life is the easiest it's ever been, even if it's still difficult).
It sort of supports your point about life getting better, on average. It doesn't support your other point, "it really drives home how utterly unfit for modern life a person has to be to justify a life of crime in 2019". We're nowhere near the point where choosing the criminal life means one is unfit for modern society. Not only some people are still forced into it by circumstances, a lot of crime thrives in the conditions of modern society.
I'm not saying that choosing a life of criminality is evidence that someone is unfit for modern life. Instead, I'm saying that someone would have to be incredibly unfit for modern life to justify criminality by pointing to modern life being difficult (which is what the person I was responding to was saying). Those are two different arguments. I actually mostly agree with you.