Triple front's made a lot of sense when you had small rear cassettes (like 5 or 6 speed) but result in an awful lot of overlap, so that 18 speed might only really give you, say, 10 different gearings.

When rears got more speeds and more range, the 3 at the front quickly became obsolete, and 2 would do the same job but would be slightly simpler.

You'll probably never get the same range out of a 1x unless you go for something nuts like a 42x 10-51.

I did like my 3x because I could essentially just leave the rear in the middle and jump between 3 pretty big increments, but now I've got a 2x on the road bike and 1x on the mountain bike (using the other lever for a dropper post) I can't imagine me going back to 3x because it gives me nothing in return for the extra hassle.