A reply to myself since I can't edit: Survivorship bias may not completely describe what I'm talking about here but another commenter posted about Lindy Effect,

A reply to myself since I can't edit: Survivorship bias may not completely describe what I'm talking about here but another commenter posted about Lindy Effect, which is 100% on the nose: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect These systems are in place and will continue to be maintained simply because they've stood the test of time.