Less dramatic off top of head: proud poverty built your work ethic but no motivation to pull any social safety net ladders.

Or maybe happy punch card programming developed your 1337 skills but glad IDEs are there for the current generation.

I think you are missing the point of talking about utility in the first place. I have no interest in lamentations. If you told someone to stay away from social networks because of their flaws, you would be doing them a cultural and professional disservice.

As a more moderate metaphor it's like someone saying they like living in one city, for all its flaws, and someone else comes along and extolls the virtues of several imaginary cities. It's fun to imagine those places, but its silly to mention them when someone is speaking of utility. This rush to examples not beholden to reality seems more common among technical types than any other, and likely prevents you from benefitting from what exists today.