My first computer was a DOS machine with BASIC. If I wanted to play games I had to write them. No ads. No algorithm.
The key lesson is that computers are general purpose machines that you can bend to your will.
This reminds me of "in my childhood we could only ate car tires for breakfast, then walked 10km to school barefoot, chased by a bear" posts. You most definitely did not need to write your own DOS games, they were abundant.
Not everyone cares about computers or is destined to spend their lives tinkering with them. Most people are content with simply thinking of computers as a magic box that does things and going on with their lives. And maybe there’s nothing wrong with that. Not everything needs to be bent to your will.
In very old days kids would have had to build their own toys instead of going to a toy store. Is there some lesson there?
Probably, yes. People have a better appreciation for what they build[0] and seem to also be more mindful about the usage of what they build[1].
Wouldn't surprise me if this extends to tech, too, but I couldn't find anything that explored this.
[0] https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%20Files/11-091.pdf
[1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11002-018-9465-6