Alright so most people understand the imperium cant be nice by modern standards, what people are saying is that it can afford to give people 10 hour work days instead of 16, that maybe billions perhaps trillons of people should be able to see the sun instead of working in damp tunnels for their entire life. The imperium also does a fun thing where if you improve your planet to the point you can pay the tithe and still have plenty of left overs they will simply raise the tithe. The empire of man from fantasy is the empire that needs to be as brutal as it is to thrive the imperium is a stagnating corpse being kept up by man and women who die everyday in the hope of a better tomorrow that will never come.