People have been making music for 100,000 years, (or more) beginning with hand claps and knocking stones on a hollow log. The voice and the drum yeah...
People have been making stringed instruments for probably 15-20,000 years... no one
knows how long. Could be much more. Most of us underestimate our ancestors, but
not me. Music is one of the things that defines our humanity.
People have been playing really excellent stringed instruments for 2 to 3,000 years for sure,
maybe more. Pawn shop records don't go back far enough to verify the early (and extremely collectible) stringed instruments. But people who could make bow strings could make harp
strings, and so on. Figure they were just like us, but no cell phones. They wrote no books, but sang many songs.
People have been making music on guitars or guitar like instruments for almost as long, going back to the Ancient Greek "Kithara" ...the first mention of guitars in recent history goes back to about 1200 in Spain. That's 800 years.
Electric guitars have existed since the 1930s, about 80 years or so... a minor period of time by comparison. They are a product of the defunct and now discredited 20th century. 100 years ago, guitars were not very popular... Trumpets and Clarinets and Saxophones stood in the front line of the bands of the day, and got all the chicks. Guitar players sat in the back line with the bass players and played chunka chunka chunka style rhythm.
Introduction of the "Dreadnought" guitars in 1916 showed the way, for guitars to play
loud enough to step up and take a solo. Amplification was a logical extension of that idea.
So the Electric guitar is a relatively minor phenomenon, compared to how much music and
joy has been created with stringed instruments down all of human history. They have lots
of soul and mojo, but only when there's power available.
When the power goes out (not if)... electric guitars will be inert objects of nostalgia.
When fickle public opinion changes, musicians will all start from zero. There is no guarantee
that electric guitars will continue to be popular. Musicians of the future may well make music on instruments that have not been invented yet. Or they may pick up acoustic guitars
and find them to be adaptable and capable of adding to anyone's style, and anyone's
musical adventure.
In spite of all that, I love my electric guitars and basses. I consider myself very fortunate to
have lived through the second half of the 20th Century when guitars were the top of the
music chain. I wouldn't trade that for anything. The electric motor was invented about 200 years ago, and electricity has blossomed into the lifeblood of our "Civilization" (such as it is).
But there's no guarantee that electric power will be available in the future. Fossil fuels and
Nuclear energy are very temporary supplies. When the power goes out, I'll have to trade something for a doghouse bass, or just play my drum. People will still make music, the
way we always have. Acoustic guitars are the real thing.
And these three beauties will be my bread and butter. AND they'll still be worth something...
even when I'm too old to play any more.

Martin 0-17 1936: "Rosebud"
Mossman Flint Hills dred 1975: "Amber"
Martin XC1T 2006: "No. 9"