OP Ignore anything on TV. Quite apart from anything else, many programme-makers come with a large backup/support system in the form of camera operators, location finders and fixers, paid locals to guide them etc. Also, they mostly have plenty of money to pay for the best outdoor kit.
I don't really see what capitalism has to do with it, either. I hold no views about Ben Fogle and wish him very well, but the government website Companies House website (surely, the home of capitalism!) lists him as a director of several companies, some past and disolved but others stillactive. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/officers/PLL--dR-Uj4jL0qO4PisxHiJD0U/appointments
According to Time Out, he also owns and proposes to rent out a very desirable London residence for a considerable sum: https://www.timeout.com/london/news/ben-fogles-eye-popping-london-home-is-up-for-rent-061223 Good luck to him. I do not criticise.
Having lived for many years in a very remote place - before it was 'discovered' by rich media folk, I can say:
1.If you live anywhere permanently, you cannot escape bureaucracy. You also need it; you need to register with a GP (chest infections from living in somewhere cold and damp are a very real possibility; also, talking to a 90 year old neighbour about times in the past, she readily offered the info that several children she knew when young had died of tetanus (going barefoot at the time was usual) so vaccinations are essential. Also what about smear tests, contraception etc. Almost certainly, you'll need to get some post delivered and if you have children, they need to register with a school. I never claimed benefits - I was working from home all the time - but if you intend to/need to (and I'm not critical of this, either, despite your antagonism to capitalism) then you'll need an address. I also see it as a democratic duty to vote - because of the Suffragettes - and for that you need to be on the electoral roll. To my mind, it's a cop-out to complain about the way things are run and not to try to take actions, however limited, to try to change them for the better.
2 You need water, wherever you live. Not simple, in many remote places where natural local water supplies are at a premium. Often, this has led to serious legal/social conflicts between neighbours. We had happily and legally had agreed rights to the use of a spring, but we had to purchase hundreds of metres of water piping (and expensive connectors) plus the tanks to collect that water. Cost was several thousands. Even so, the pipes froze every winter and that created airlocks. We had to wade up a stream in freezing fast-flowing water for almost a kilometer to open each pipe joint and let trapped air out. We also had to scramble maybe 20 ft down a cliff to get to the water header tank and replace bits of piping or connections that had been blown apart by the ice.
You CAN construct a compost loo but they are quite a lot of work and not that cheap to begin with. They also need to be properly designed, by an expert that you (very properly) pay for. Depending on the local soil conditions - ours was solid rock - it can cost many thousands to eventually install a septic tank. And then it is several hundreds more to get it desludged/emptied every few years. If you think that wild areas are an open-all-hours-loo for anything but the most occasional visit, then I have utterly no respect. Sorry. I don't know what the programme-makers do; I would really hope that they are more responsible.
3.For all this time, I did not have a car. There was one bus a day to the nearest shopping centre, 50 miles each way. The bus stop was 3 miles away, up a steep hill. So I walked. I had a big veg garden, but the climate was pretty extreme - this is UK mainland, not the outer isles. So how are you going to eat? There was a village shop about 7 miles away, but it could not possibly stock a wide range of stuff and nor could it charge supermarket low prices. Without email/phone/agreed address, deliveries were impossible. And even now, most food suppliers will still not deliver to that address.
4.For some long time, we had no electricity. So no internet, no quick cooking, no TV, no lighting, no remote school working etc etc. Even today, a few years after we moved away (for ill-health reasons) mobile phone and broadband connections are not reliable. There has never been any online gas available. If you've got the means to transport the cylinders, then very expensive LPG is an option. Otherwise wood - no, you cannot go and trespass and take it yourself - is not cheap, either.
I DO NOT WISH to sound negative. My ancestors as far as Scottish records for ordinary people can be traced back came from such a background and so I was brought up with their values. The 20+ years I spent living in wild remote suroundings surrounded by - in winter time - fewer than 10 neighbours scattered over a wide area - were some of the happiest of my life. We knew that we all depended on each other and so, in spite of differences in age/wealth/outlook we genuinely worked together to help each other.
This has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with posh outsiders visiting for a while for TV, and even less to do with capitalist (or the alternative) values. Though, FWIW, any study of 19th cent/early 20th cent literature (from Turgenev to George Mackay Brown) surely tells you that the canny-with-money peasant is a stock figure of realist as well as imaginative writing.
And you ask 'were their conditions any worse?' Well, my grandmother had five pregnancies that I know of (maybe more) and only three surviving children. Who knows whether the others would have survived with decent /affordable medical care. All three slept in the same bed in a house with no heating and no indoor water supply/loo. My father said that the dog (who liked to get in under the covers) helped keep them warm at night.