I don't think the software analogy works super well. In the case of software there's been a real performance loss over time as code became generally less optimized. In the case of space hardware or space stations, not having to use ultra-specialized materials means a potentially huge reduction in cost, which will enable plenty of new use cases. Space will become hugely more accessible as launch costs and space hardware costs both go down tremendously. Nobody is really losing here, except maybe the slow, bloated, old school space industry.