Before the microcomputer most technologies were totally hackable and often buildable from scratch. Out of the things you had in the 60s, probably only TV could not be built in-house. Radios? Washing machines? Cars? All could be constructed by general population with various levels of effort. But what's more important, all those things were user-servicable, user-modifiable and it was a popular hobby to tinker with stuff.
That assumes that "we collectively" were ever in control.
The reality is that these breakthrough technologies, no matter what the century, took massive amounts of money and time to become adopted and by and large they were built by the bigs in some fashion - either through license deals or direct investment from IBM, US Government etc...
Sure there have been FOSS wins, but if you look at the major technologies, basically since forever they were funded and owned by big corporations.