@jack thanks for giving me the opportunity to clarify my take, because the "past good, future bad" framing was probably the weakest part of it.

my actual point is that software is the product of its environment. software created in a repressive environment reflects the greed and paranoia of its creators.

there are plenty of examples of this in the past; Microsoft were greedy and paranoid, David Ahl and the Creative Computing crew weren't, and when you use their software, the difference is stark. today there is still plenty of software (usually FOSS) that hasn't been dragged down by extractive greed. however, pretty much all of the dominant players have succumbed to the perverse calling of adtech and data brokerage. there are people entering the field today who have never seen a website without targeted ads, an operating system without always-on telemetry, or a video game without microtransactions, and it's mainly #retrocomputing heads who are in the position to point out these thing are a product of the fucked up environment we live in, not an inherent trait of software, and that we can do better when creating new software.

put another way, retrocomputing is the most interesting to me when it isn't just based on blind nostalgia for the past, but instead focuses on understanding what past systems Got Right and what use we can still make of them today.