Our last house had one and when a light bulb needed to be changed H would borrow a long telescoping pole with a sort of "grabber" on the end from his friend. The fixture had globes that were open on the ends so no cover removing was needed. It was silly for us to buy that tool because his friend is a contractor so needed for multiple jobs. But if we didn't know him I suppose we would have had to buy one. He also waited until more than one bulb was burnt out to make it worth his while LOL At some point he started putting the LED bulbs in that last much longer so it wasn't an issue very often.
We just bought one after living in our house for 15 years. We timed it to install by a guy with a huge ladder before the last light bulb burnt out because we had no idea how to replace them.