> Because this form of evidence destruction is viewed as legal by the courts if you're not a "highly regulated" business like a bank, [..…]

Which is exactly the crux of the problem.

Why do we have two completely opposite regimes for arguably not very different types of organizations?

Intentionally short data retention policies should be illegal – but obviously that's completely infeasible in the US with its incredibly expensive legal discovery process, so that would be the first thing to fix.

On the flip side, even regulated industries should get to have a digital equivalent of an unmonitored "conversation on the golf course/in the elevator" etc. – or do we seriously want to incentivize that in a world where we're rethinking physical offices?