I think there's a number of trends that are all tied to video refereeing:
- Offsides seem to be called more correctly. This is maybe a good thing, the only issue is it's often not obvious to the fans exactly what the law is, ie which body part is the offside point?
- More penalties. Stats are clear on this, the number of penalties in the last year or two has rocketed. I suspect this is because the laws of the game were written before vidrefs were a thing, and when you have video the grey zone can be sharpened. The interesting thing is of course there's been video replays since forever, they just haven't been used by refs. So we can actually go back in time and check if hands-on in the box actually happened just as often.
- More own goals is probably a change in attribution. With vidrefs being a thing you can move away from using common sense and just say "whoever touched it last". For the people who decide the attribution it's easier than deciding those corner cases where someone kicked it but the defender also sorta touched it.
I wish they would use the videos to detect and punish simulation. There will always be some borderline cases, but where a player is untouched (or touched in a completely different area) and then kicks off, hurtling to the ground while screaming in agony, and then jumps up as soon as the play resumes.
The game would be better without so much focus and time spent on playing to trick the referee. Having teams that are more evenly matched as ever and adding more penalties without addressing simulation will make for a boring game in the end that is just a contest of whoever can fool the referee better to get an advantage.
Unsporting behaviour can already get a player cautioned (and therefore a second such offence can already get a player sent off) and attempting to deceive the referee is literally the first example of unsporting behaviour given in the rules. It's strange that this isn't used more often, particularly in matches where certain players are frequent offenders.
In other situations, like putting the ball out so an opposing player can receive medical care, every player understands that this is just good sportsmanship. Likewise no-one criticises a player from that opposing team who gives possession back to the team who put it out when play restarts. So why are players who all respect that tradition OK with people who frequently take a dive or appeal for something they know they don't deserve?
- Offsides seem to be called more correctly. This is maybe a good thing, the only issue is it's often not obvious to the fans exactly what the law is, ie which body part is the offside point?
- More penalties. Stats are clear on this, the number of penalties in the last year or two has rocketed. I suspect this is because the laws of the game were written before vidrefs were a thing, and when you have video the grey zone can be sharpened. The interesting thing is of course there's been video replays since forever, they just haven't been used by refs. So we can actually go back in time and check if hands-on in the box actually happened just as often.
- More own goals is probably a change in attribution. With vidrefs being a thing you can move away from using common sense and just say "whoever touched it last". For the people who decide the attribution it's easier than deciding those corner cases where someone kicked it but the defender also sorta touched it.