I know that this will come as a huge shock to you, but the game has actually existed for about 18 years before you came around. Yes, it’s true. If you need to sit down and take a pause, I understand.
Mining barge EHP has been buffed a few times. Barges received a buff across the board in 2009/2010, and then again in 2012, when they were put in their defensive “tiers.” Then miners were complaining that they “had to” use Procurers/Skiffs to not get ganked so much that CCP caved and gave Covetors/Hulks extra low slots in 2016. Now, most recently, barge EHPs were effectively doubled except for the tanky versions, which went kind of plus/minus depending on fit, but they were already so strong defensively that it doesn’t really matter. Your Procurer gained 50,000 EHP before it lost around 10,000.
There was the hull resist buff, battleship EHP mod bonuses, various slot changes and random +HP additions to specific hulls (especially faction/navy variants) over the past few years, which is the period of time the OP is asking about. Everything on average has become about 2-3x more survivable since the game’s early years, but damage hasn’t really kept up, even though it doesn’t feel that way because everyone just gang-bangs their targets/enemies now whereas in the past the solo/small gang game was much more prevalent.