I think the article is pretty light on the specifics. There are parts of technology where you're absolutely right - if some mission-critical system is running

I think the article is pretty light on the specifics. There are parts of technology where you're absolutely right - if some mission-critical system is running on some old circuit, but it works reliably and maintenance is feasible, don't change it! But other pieces of tech include the Windows 95 computer that is the only one anyone can do _____ with, because of some complex system that only runs on it. And anytime you do _____, you need to copy your data onto a file, and exclude some specifically formatted config file that you write in notepad, in order to get it done. And the whole system is a small project that could be feasibly implemented quickly and cheaply to run on modern computers. So there are two sides to this, and arguing absolutes doesn't get us much closer to the truth. From the article, it mentions that Social Security has a variety of legacy systems, and updates the ones that it thinks are the slowest and costliest. Which is the right way to think about it, so long as they have the technical expertise to make those judgements correctly.