In science fiction, feudalism is often treated as a natural stage of economic development. Colonies “slip back into feudalism” and aliens haven’t “progressed past feudalism”, and so on. But feudalism just seems to be a response to the specific situation where you have to fight off bandits, but don’t have the cash economy to pay soldiers. It didn’t seem that popular outside Europe and Japan. What do you think?

I don’t know if I’d go as far as “it didn’t seem that popular outside Europe and Japan” – once you add in Russia, India, and China to your list of historical feudalisms, you’ve got a big chunk of the globe right there – although I will agree that it’s not a universal experience either (since you don’t see pretty much all of Africa or any of the Americas on that list, although you can make some quibbles about certain periods of colonialism). 

That being said, treating feudalism (or arguably any social order) as natural or inevitable is a major error in thinking. I blame Hegel and Marx for that one.