ccs
41st lv DM
I think in most people's campaigns they have always been more fluff than actual rule. Otherwise a spellcaster would constantly need to maintain a shopping list. Shopping for spell components also bogs down the game, plus it allows the DM to arbitrarily make some spell components unavailable, which would be unfair to the player. Plus no DM is going to check if a player actually has the required components for a spell. What it is, is unnecessary busy work. It has always been a bad rule, in EVERY edition of D&D.
And here boys & girls we see a prime example of how the casters, particularly the Wizard achieves their supposed superiority.
They convince the DM that tracking a vital supply is "unnecessary busy work".
Never mind that some spell components are rare & valuable things for a reason.
Yet they'll track their GP & XP in order to buy/craft as much *&^% as possible.... And they constantly have a shopping list anyways.
This DM tracks your spell components with a pencil. But its 2020 & I'm sure I could find an app for it.