I'm sure I am more consciously aware of the bloat but I do think that subconsciously "non-techy" people still dislike it. I feel like this is similar to the ap

I'm sure I am more consciously aware of the bloat but I do think that subconsciously "non-techy" people still dislike it. I feel like this is similar to the apple vs microsoft/IBM debates. I'm not even sure what the popular take on it is these days but I do believe that to some extent a pleasing user experience was/is championed by Apple (in a specific aesthetic sense). And, if apple never existed we would have less tech products with that user experience philosophy embedded in them. I believe that illusive "pleasing" user experience that apple seemed to try to build in its products is similar to the idea of not having as much bloat on websites. There is business value of consuming every single morsel of user tracking data possible but that tracking also has some cost in terms of user experience. Just because companies have tended towards bloat doesn't mean that they are definitely right. Apple has made a great deal of money and I believe some of that is due to their style of user experience.