I suppose it's a basic mistake to try to get our history from British TV programs such as Upstairs, Downstairs, Gosford Park, or Downton Abbey, but within these programs there are some basic truths and one of them is that for a certainty there was a time when domestic servants were part and parcel of the privileged class in the United Kingdom. So too, in a country that was once ruled by Britannica, the gilded age of America, had its domestic servants to attend to the upper class and their stately mansions. As we look around today, domestic servants are still in existence in the States, but more on the basis of performing a specific job for a specific period of time, such as cleaning the house on every Tuesday, or basic gardening needs, or perhaps catering a specific affair. It seems that in the present day, with the exception of households in which there is a large contingent of children, and therefore may have a live-in maid, that also doubles as providing childcare, and perhaps cooking, that live-in domestic servants have all but disappeared.
Perhaps that was the way it would always be in a country to which all are entitled to education and equal opportunity, but probably, it has much more to do with the fact that a lot of what domestic servants use to do has been replaced by technology or technological substitutes over the last few generations. For instance, you hardly need livery stable help, to provide care and service for horses, if you no longer have any horses. So too you don't need a full-time cook to provide meals for the household, if you have things such as freezers and refrigerators, stoves, ovens, and microwaves, nearby grocery stores, and convenient takeout or restaurants, that all make the reliability and flexibility of getting a good meal, something that is considered to be fairly routine. In addition, indoor plumbing and hot water has replaced the need for servants to bath you, do your laundry by hand, or to replace your chamber pots as necessary. Also, we find that modern electricity negates the necessity of having someone light the lamps or taper them as necessary, or provide us with personal fanning services during those hot summertime afternoons. The bottom line is that while some of the things that domestic servants once did, are still desired, they aren't going to be often needed on a 24/7 basis, all because of the convenience and reliability of modern appliances in so many areas of our life that we now take for granted.
Most people probably don't think much about domestic servants, one way or another, that was then and this is now, but the closing of the door on the need for domestic servants for the very rich and privileged is also the closing of the door of a true ground floor insider gaining knowledge of how the superrich live, think, and conduct their affairs. The rich are different, and somebody trusted, perhaps considered to be part of the family, needs to keep a check on them, because power unchecked is a threat to the people.