It’s not just cities - there’s nearly no dark sky sites in all of Europe, and very few dark sky areas east of the Mississippi in the US.
I didn’t see the Milky Way with my naked eye until driving through NE New Mexico in my late 20s.
darkskymap.com/nightSkyBrightness
I've been on a few cruises in my life, and my favorite part is always going out to the darkest party of the deck in the middle of the night when the ships out in open waters, to just lie there and look at the stars.
No. Because light pollution makes it impracticable, even if you live rather far from civilization. The best place on Earth to see it would be Point Nemo, and even then it wouldn't be as clear as it was before human civilization (not even just electricity, either.)
People living in cities sometimes leave and many have not lived in a city their whole lives. Additionally, the power can go out at night in cities. For instance, where I live we sometimes get tropical storms, winter storms, and other disasters that can knock out power for hours (and even days) even inside the city -- I imagine that's not uncommon elsewhere. A lot of cities in poorer nations ration power or only have electricity available during certain hours.
So, overall, I would say that it's probably not the case that "most" people have never seen a full starry night unless you're getting super technical and pedantic about the word "full" to where you're specifically asking about a completely unobstructed view with 0% light pollution, in which case then I would say that almost nobody has seen a full starry night in that case, regardless of whether or not they live in a city.
I have been on this planet for a while and I have only seen the night sky like the last picture driving through Texas in the middle of nowhere.
Power going out in a city isn't enough to stop the light population from surrounding areas. It would have to be the only city around for miles and it would have to be a full power loss.
I would say most people have never came close to seeing an uncountable amount of stars in the sky.
I live in a medium sized city that is 30 minutes from a large city. I can count like a dozen stars in the sky. If we lose power the sky doesn't magically change to look like it was in Texas. Honestly, I don't remember it changing at all.
Thanks for the image. The best I have seen is 4-3 back in 2000s now I be lucky to see a 7.
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