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Absolutely this. How you introduce the crate is vital to the dog seeing it positively. I work from home most days and Herbie will spend much of it asleep in the crate, by choice - the door is open. At night, he will go into it initially, but usually ends up sleeping on the landing, where he has another bed outside my bedroom. He can be left in the crate for a long time and, sometimes it's necessary, but not something that I will do as a rule.
I feed Herbie outside (helps when he's chewing chicken carcasses etc.) but, if he gets treats inside, it will be in his crate. The benefit of only giving dogs food in specific places, in my experience, is that they don't beg and bother you for food when you're cooking or eating.
Markyboy
The crate becomes a dog's safe space.
Our dogs are never forced into the crate, but they are fed there and if needs be can be lured in with some food. All meals are given to them in the crate. The dogs are never pushed in or pulled out from there.
When tradespeople come to the house they might be anxious about our dogs, so it is easy to get the dogs into the crates, where they are likely to stay calm and the visitor can go about their tasks with no anxiety about a dog jumping or barking at them.
The reason they get bad press is when people fail to train a dog to go into the crate by choice or use it as a punishment/banishment. Also there are people who think they can leave a dog crated for hours unattended, which is animal cruelty.