The idea of PC's slowing down overtime generally stems from user error more so than anything else in my experience. See with a console, the only thing you can really do is play games. They are purpose built. Sure you can do some other things like browse the web or play/stream media but at the crucks of it, it's main purpose is to play games.

A PC's main purpose is to do whatever you want and the user generally wants to do more things than just play games on a PC. Maybe they like memes and they want to make their own by installing photoshop. Well now you have Adobe's background junk consistently running. Maybe they are interested in Virtual Machines, well now you have to install programs like VMware or Hyper-V which have services running the background. Maybe they want to get into coding and such, well now you have to install additional software. Maybe they are super horny and wants to download TB's worth of prawn from shady sites that installed iamavirus.exe and the list goes on.

And this gets really yikes worthy if the PC has a mechanical hard drive instead of SSD. A console needs to run like maybe a couple of applications at once. But a PC? A fuck ton which again, as you load more software services onto the PC, that spinning disk gets more and more strain put onto it. It's one of the reasons why the move to SSD was a god send in PC use.

And don't get me started with pre-built PCs. You buy a computer from Dell and you don't do a fresh reinstall of Windows? You get to deal with Norton or McAfee anti viruses which drastically slow down PCs even with really fast SSDs. Not to mention all the shatware that comes pre-installed such as Support Assist and other nonsense. Oh and don't forget about all the dust that the more casual users don't clean.

Of course, I could go on but to quote uncle Ben: "With Great Power comes Great responsibility." If reinstalling Windows fixes slowdowns in your PC, that's not a problem with the platform, that's a problem with you and the shit you did to your PC.

This, plus this was only mainly true back when PC's mostly ran with windows on a HDD. As is gradually filled up and would have to seek more to find everything you've added over time, this process would take longer.

Pretty much any PC bought from retail in the past 6/7 years will be running on flash storage. Guarantee. 

Lol Norton ain't so bad these days. Has been rewritten from scratch and works well on windows 10.

Laugh all you want, but these days it is so much more efficient then it was.  The old version you would finish a whole degree at uni before a program in windows loaded up, latest version is like drinking a cup of coffee lol. 

Getting rid of it was the first thing I would do  now days I don't bother as haven't had it annoy me. 

I have no doubt it's more efficient than it was before but having continuously dealing with people who have Norton as a part of my job in IT, it's still terrible. Just how terrible it is depends on the type of computer it's on as the faster the computer, then less you will notice it. It even has a ton of false positives.

These days, it's better to just use Windows Defender and once in a while, scan your system using MalwareBytes. Both are free solutions that will give you much better performance while giving you equivalent if not better protection.

I have a decent enough gaming PC that I built and the current gaming consoles... I honestly still prefer playing on my game consoles over PC. Ultimately it all comes down to preference 

Edit: Not sure what the OP meant by "are the PC master race days over"? (as the original article he linked to is gone) but PC gaming is more popular than ever and more video games developers release on PC than they used to (to include Sony and Microsoft). 

Console gaming got a lot better this gen with much better 60 fps support and 120Hz/40fps in some games.
2 - 3 presets (performance mode + fidelity mode + RT mode...) got standard for most demanding games.

I prefer PC gaming with even more options, but competition is good.

Yeah, I'm still on my rig that I bought in July of 2015, so that's 7 years now. No reformatting or clean installs. Running a 980 Ti and it still kicks ass, my CPU has never been a bottleneck and I play at 1440p, there is also, as of yet, overall little grounds for more than 16GB or RAM (which is my current amount). My nephews got my previous rig and the youngest one still games on it, it's now around 13 years old and still works well, it's limitation is mainly the HDD being slow and GPU lagging, but even that CPU is hanging in there and it still has enough RAM for most minimum requirements.

All that said, I am actually making the jump next year and going all in on a fully 4k 60fps+ capable rig. I'll be jumping 4 chip generations ahead, but this is my choice, I could easily keep this rig viable for a decade. Can't wait for my new beast, and I still consider the PC to easily be the platform of my choice!

PC master rave is more evident then ever. If you buy a Xbox you get Xbox exclusives. If you buy a PlayStation you get playstation exclusives. If you buy a pc you get both and all Xbox exclusives for a small amount of money if you have gamepass. Also a pc doesn't have to compromise on graphics. So no PC is still the winner no matter how you look at it. If only Nintendo also starts releasing games on pc.