If you're not young, able, and heterosexual, technology can easily be the difference between isolation and connection.

Uhh... you went of in some weird orthogonal direction. The Stross reference were about the minimum number of people needed for a technological civilization.

(Didn't you read it? Are you defending some belief system as an excuse for being religious? We're just talking past each others?)

(And you're wrong, anyway. without technology and science, we'd still have little time, get sick and die early -- living under tyranny. Not much chance of contentment and happiness when you e.g. see your kids die; it was ~ 30% child mortality before technology/science, depending on where you lived. The point is, industrialisation is a prereq for fulfilling existential needs for most of the population.)

> Love, affection, contentment, happiness, connection.

Technology has addressed these more than you will ever realize.

As has been said already, technology greatly reduces isolation for anyone who isn't young, healthy, heterosexual, cissexual, and of the majority race in the region they find themselves. The ability to form connections based on mutual interests even when geography is against you is easily the difference between living and dying alone and finding a place where you actually fit.

What's more, the ability to make connections anonymously is essential. Being of the wrong persuasion, whatever that persuasion is, in the wrong environment can be grounds for anything from social ostracism to death. Without the technology to anonymously make connections with others, there are people who would risk death just looking for someone they'd enjoy spending time with.

The only people who think technology can't help with what you call 'existential needs' are the people who are lucky enough to not already know what I just posted. And they are amazingly lucky indeed.