Computer power doesn't make the hub and spoke system much less attractive. The most efficient way to create a big route network is having a bunch of planes fly

Computer power doesn't make the hub and spoke system much less attractive. The most efficient way to create a big route network is having a bunch of planes fly into the same city, waiting an hour and a half, let everyone change planes, and then fly back to where they came from. If it's a big city, then everyone who lives in that big city can get direct flights to all of the cities in the network. This means that you want an airport with tons of runways in the middle of a big city for the most efficient route network. Thus, you get ORD, DFW, and ATL, all big cities with big airports with lots of parallel runways. There will always be an airline that wants to make a big city without a big airport with lots of parallel runways their hub. Then you end up with what happens in New York, and what happened in Chicago until the recent runway construction.