In The Force Awakens we saw some Senators on balconies or something as they were getting nuked.
That is the one and only piece of evidence that a post-Empire world existed. And now it doesn’t exist, because they were nuked in TFA.
Otherwise it’s exactly as if the Empire never lost power. Perhaps an orderly off-screen transition of power from Palpatine to Snoke occurred in this universe.
It was a complete soft reboot. Somehow they’ve convinced fans to insist that the First Order is just a small little imperial remnant despite all evidence to the contrary.
I agree and that’s really why I don’t like TFA as a film. Aside from my other complaints about the movie, I generally feel like it took the Star Wars story nowhere despite being set 30 years in the future. But I thought The Last Jedi had potential to build off of TFA and flesh out the trilogy in a way that I could enjoy despite my issues of it. Now the idea behind The Last Jedi and the themes in it are interesting (if honestly not all that original to Star Wars as some people keep claiming it is), but the execution left a really bad taste in my mouth. Especially because more than half of that movie was a waste of my time and ultimately pointless as it didn’t progress the plot and just retread a character arc already gone through in The Force Awakens.
That’s partially why the “lol you didn’t like TFA because it wasn’t original, but hated TLJ because it was” argument is really annoying and tiresome. It’s an easy way to deflect criticism while pretending you actually understand the criticism people are saying. Also it’s really just plain insulting.