Sure, and you can still find fanless devices, but then they'll typically be the ones not focused on multi-thread performance. And if you don't care about that, e.g. because you're offloading heavy workloads to a server or you just don't do anything compute heavy, then you can find a lot of fanless offerings with low core counts that are actually quite inexpensive. You can get some fanless Chromebooks for under $200.
Depends on your metric. A fan makes noise, attracts dirt that needs cleaning, needs more space ...
I really love my fanless devices, even though they never will reach the speed of activly cooled ones.