Pretty sure they've been around a lot longer than 5 years, all the ones I see are gas powered.
Me and my guy were at a house about 8 years ago that was getting roofed. Tall roof they had a 36 footer all the way extended. They had this scrawny young kid grabbing two bundles of shingles at a time and humping them up this ladder in the 90+ degree heat. He looked like he was going to fall out at any minute, shaking on the ladder. All the older guys on the roof were just yelling hurry the fuck up what are you doing were out of shingles. My helpers advice, hey you should tell your boss to get one of those ladder lifts. Poor kid. He eventually got the whole skid up there but hes lucky he didn't get heat stroke and fall off the ladder. I would of quit fuck all that.