It isn't that wild, really, that people who have even the most basic awareness of history are concerned about the spread of the single most destructive ideology in all of history.
Communism problem is that it goes together with authoritarianism and corruption.
Yes, you can get both of those things with capitalism, just look at Russia, but looks like they are more likely to happen with communism.
Authoritarianism is responsible for many people's deaths, while corruption is why things were so bad that it pushed for invention of this.
The reason why the glass is not popular right now is because we as consumers are perfectly fine with this. We let companies get away with it instead of voting with our wallets. Nearly all of us are guilty purchasing smart phones that won't last longer than 2 years, pre-paying for games when companies frequently stiffed us that way. Almost no one puts time to research which companies produce quality product so such manufacturers frequently go out of business.
> is evidenced by their using the term as a synonym for authoritarianism.
You can't deny the fact though that all socialist (or what people from beyond the pond like to call "communist") countries turned towards authoritarianism on their "journey" of eventually achieving communism (even if some of those countries might have started off with the best intentions to actually improve things). And it happened with such regularity that it cannot be explained away with "no true scotsman (pardon: communist)" arguments.
Oh if anything I think you're being too timid with your critique here so let's say the quiet parts out loud. The movement was coopted by sociopaths and used as cover to promote naked authoritarianism. This doesn't excuse failure to grasp the original stated goals or (worse) trying to utilize red scare propaganda to handwave past capitalism's obvious flaws.
