Strollers have their uses, but are radically overused to the detriment of families who become over-reliant on them. They keep the kids dependent, detached from the world, and physically weak. Typical infants can be wrapped on an adult's chest, can be mostly riding on shoulders by 9 months old, and kids can be walking independently most of the time by age 2 or 2.5 and participating in conversation with accompanying adults. By age 4 or so typical kids can continuously walk several miles at decent speed without any issue.
I regularly see 4+ year-olds sitting in a stroller playing phone games or just looking bored and disengaged, while the adult pushing the stroller otherwise completely ignores them, and it always makes me cringe.
> kids can be walking independently most of the time by age 2 or 2.5
One thing I've noticed, they don't walk very well while taking a nap. And you just get so much more out of a day when you don't have to return home in the middle.
With my kids it was never a problem to just let them sleep wherever we happened to be sitting (restaurant chairs, museum benches, bus seats, a patch of grass, my lap, ...). Occasionally I was stuck carrying a sleeping kid around for a while, but that was also typically fine. A stroller might be mildly more convenient on rare occasions, but it was never a big deal, and the kids becoming self-sufficient much earlier and more completely (with respect to mobility) than most of their peers was more than worth any trouble. YMMV.
A 2 year old walks far too slow to keep up with older people, and is especially a concern while crossing a road. They also get distracted and do not necessarily follow instructions.
There is a pretty big difference between using a stroller to help get a toddler (less than 5 years old) around and using it to pacify a 5 year old. In my experience, somewhere between 4 and 5 is when I expect them to be able to walk at a sufficient pace and distance to never need strollers.
A 2-year-old can be very easily carried on an adult's shoulders if you're in a huge hurry, but much of the time it's better to just slow down to the kid's speed. If kids get substantial practice walking every day, their speed and stamina improves quite quickly. By age ~3 they are quite able to keep up with a moderate adult pace, and by 4 they'll be running all around faster than you probably want to walk.
I regularly see 4+ year-olds sitting in a stroller playing phone games or just looking bored and disengaged, while the adult pushing the stroller otherwise completely ignores them, and it always makes me cringe.