Honestly, I think the main reason they were hard to sell as the series villains wasn't the capitalist part, it was the fact that they were scrawny and unintimidating. They were just sort of dorky rather than scary. The writers learned well to lean into that dorkiness in later appearances and DS9.
What made the borg intimidating was you actually felt like they were a threat. I mean, pretty early on they captured and converted picard.
Honestly, I think the main reason they were hard to sell as the series villains wasn't the capitalist part, it was the fact that they were scrawny and unintimidating. They were just sort of dorky rather than scary. The writers learned well to lean into that dorkiness in later appearances and DS9.
What made the borg intimidating was you actually felt like they were a threat. I mean, pretty early on they captured and converted picard.