One reason our ancestors had plenty of children is that children were a large net-benefit to them.

Many modern societies are structured in a way that makes children an economic negative to their parents. From an individuals' POV, the "smart" play is not having children and hope others do.

Individuals believe that they do not need children because they have saved up for retirement, not accounting for the fact that if everyone did this and there was nobody left to do any work once they reach retirement age, that money will be worthless and they'll be unable to retire. The alternative is mass-scale immigration, and that's becoming unpopular. For an example of what happens if a society has neither enough children, nor immigration, see South Korea. Poverty among the elderly is rampant and they are increasingly being forced back into the labor market.

Many western societies needed to start applying a large multiplier to parental benefits decades ago.

>People aren't born not wanting to have kids, since all their ancestors did.

What evidence do you have that all their ancestors wanted to have kids? I can think of a lot of reasons why people may have had kids without necessarily wanting them. They wanted to have sex in an era before birth control. They were pressured into it by the social norms of their local community. They were raped. Etc.

I have a lot of criticism of the childfree movement but I think it’s pretty disrespectful to assume they’re not being honest when they say they don’t want to have kids and that they’ve always felt that way.

I'm almost 40 and never wanted kids. As a kid, everyone would say things in the context of "when you have kids of your own..." and I always knew that I didn't want them.

If I lived in a world without reliable birth control, I may have ended up with kids I didn't want, but I'm lucky that I have other options.

Kids shouldn't be raised by people who don't want them, and not everyone is born with the biological drive to reproduce.

Your view that [most] people are born wanting kids may be biased from societal pressure and a historical lack of options.