I imagine compressed gas stoves are more common now, is that the companies make more off of selling those little bottles of fuel, also maintenance is easier.

The advantage a white gas stove has is that it will work in freezing weather and it is easier to store.

Right, I've used white gas stoves in the past. Propane cans sized for camping may have also became easier or cheaper to buy over time, although that's pure speculation.

Small propane tanks have been widely-available for car camping for a long time but the tanks are fairly heavy for backpacking or bike touring. Pre-LED lamps you also saw them used a lot in lanterns.

What has happened in the US is that other gas cylinder stoves have become more common (and maybe more standardized per another comment).

They also have a higher potential to spill, and the gas doesn’t go away into the atmosphere very quickly so you can end up setting your picnic bench on fire.

Have you seen this happen? It is surprisingly difficult—not impossible, just difficult—to light a small gas spill on fire.

The reason that gas stoves are difficult to work with is because the flame so easily goes out. Under the right circumstances, gasoline will ignite, and the gas stove is designed to make that just barely possible. The picnic bench is a less ideal environment for lighting gasoline on fire. The movies make it look like you can just drop a match or lighter onto some spilled gasoline and get a raging inferno, but if you actually try to do this yourself (safely!) you may see that dropping a lit match into gasoline often extinguishes it.

Depending on the ambient environment—the wind, temperature, how much gasoline, etc.

I have seen it happen, because I did it as a young scout. The spill was ignited by a nearby lit stove. You are right that it’s nothing like the movies. It wasn’t a particularly dangerous situation or anything, I just looked and felt like a fool.

IIRC One of the problems they brought up at Philmont was that the old peak stoves had pressure and leak issues where you'd pump it up and it's start squirting pressurized gas out of the cap, pump, or some other orifice that may have been created recently during pumping or by rust. Which means you've got a nice atomized mist of fuel / air going on and a super soaker filled with white gas situation. I think most of those cleared up. I like the MSR ones a lot better because the fuel is seperate from the stove (not built into it) and you can basically shut it of or QD it from the tank. I figured out how to prime it after trying 2 times. Then it ran like a champ and the amount of white fuel you can get into those bottles is great. I barely touched my 20oz bottle in a 5 day backpack trip up on mount hood and the stove weights literally nothing.

In high school, I knew someone who was badly burned in the Sierra Nevada just from removing the cap on his MSR fuel bottle. The bottle was pressurized from elevation gain and sprayed all over before igniting due to another nearby stove.

I still used my stove for many years after, but the knowledge of that made me handle it with extreme care each time. Like one step below a Japanese nuclear technician who is calling his shots and pointing before each action...

Good call. I've never used one where there are other fires present, just for backpacking which rarely allows campfires up here in the pnw when it's dry. I keep the MSR pump in my main bottle which has a QD for the stove. I've always walked away from camp when swapping the bottles. But I'll keep it in mind thanks!

They do that for trains too but I noticed them doing it in "The Days", tho they still blew up the reactor.

Well, we don't know if the plant architects remembered to call and point while they were placing the flood-sensitive generators underground and the drought-sensitive spent-fuel pools up in the rafters!