Like everything else in life, it depends.
I'm not surprised that people don't need to eat on 30 mile rides or indoor rides. A cup of coffee and 100 calories of something an an hour before gets me through a 2 hour workout of any kind, indoor or out. Longer than 2 hours and outside means I'll have to put something in. Indoors I've done centuries on just water but outside that's not realistic.
Between 30 and 50 miles or on my group weekend rides, I'll take liquid carbs because the ride is longer and I push harder with the group but I don't need to eat until after, which is usually lots of protein and an electrolyte drink.
When I'm training for centuries, I train up to 80 miles or so and I'll eat on a distance training ride like that just to practice bonk prevention. I learned this the hard way when I bonked 50 miles into a 70 miler with 8,000 feet of climbing.
I use sour patch kids as ride fuel because they're easy to piecemeal and yummy. On a century when you're burning 3 days worth of food, you need to eat. I tend to go for 200 calories or so an hour between food and drink, but YMMV.