I'd say MS still probably has that attitude baked into their company, treating customers as adversaries that need to be protected against.
They are definitely not known for their customer service, but they ARE known for their complex licensing and sometimes heavy-handed enforcement, that I guess maybe one could draw a line back to this as the source.
It is perfectly fine to want to be compensated for one’s work.
This is true of every company that sells intellectual "property" instead of material objects or labor.
See comment and reference at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18279370
1. "$40,000 of computer time" is reckoned in the inflated funny money accounting that is used for computer services, not unlike how damages are counted in piracy lawsuits. A computer that is on but idle costs essentially the same to operate as one that's running jobs, particularly in the minicomputer era. Gates and Allen did not make off with $40k of actual cash or anything remotely equivalent.
2. Not to defend theft of service, an actual criminal offense, but a lot of hacking legends cut their teeth on committing theft of services as well, e.g. Captain Crunch and his phone phreaking skills with blue boxing, so Gates stands in some pretty damned good company. If they get a pass, so does Gates and Allen.
Beyond that, given that this is Hacker News, I don't doubt more than a few readers here have put college resources to, ahem, creative uses as well. (Myself? No comment. -whistles innocently-)
So, yes, the parent poster is technically correct (the very best kind of correct) but they are also trying to feed us spin that makes it sound worse than it actually was.
And after 50 years they are still not able to make good software.
The audiobook I found thoroughly entertaining.
I do remember that letter, not from 1976 when I was too young to grok it (or even encounter it), but from a couple of years later when it was still controversial and I was just starting to get into S-100.
