[dewitt]

Public libraries have been a thing since the 1800's, which are equally amazing in terms of bringing tremendous impact to millions of people who wouldn't have otherwise had that benefit.

The key different of course is that mid-80's DOS software is more-or-less obsolete and abandoned for a reason (the computer history community notwithstanding, of which I'm a part), whereas public libraries are filled with books that still retain almost as much value as they day they were written.