The system for academic references in postgrad applications is broken

Most universities often require at least 1 academic reference, which means you would have to make sure your professors have a good impression of you in order for them to have something positive to write about, let alone be willing to write it.
But what happens when someone out of university for over 3 years decides to pursue postgraduate? Like it doesn’t really make sense for you to reach out to professors that haven’t seen you in a long time asking them to write a reference. It’s almost like masters courses are closed off to people once they leave academia, and designed for you to take them immediately after your undergraduate, it just doesn’t make sense