I think that every so often technology takes a wrong turn, and additional complexity is added to try to overcome the fundamental flaws. Much like the laryngeal

I think that every so often technology takes a wrong turn, and additional complexity is added to try to overcome the fundamental flaws. Much like the laryngeal nerve which controls vocal cords goes from the brain, loops around the heart, then back up to the throat. Made complete sense in fish, when it was a straight ling from brain to gills, but completely wrong in giraffes. There are quite a few wrong turns in Unix that spread because it was just “the way it’s done”. And HTML + Javascript is a terrible way to make client server applications, but constant additional complexity slowly smooths out the worst of it until nobody really thinks there’s a better way. There is, but the effort to start over just to get to the current level of functionality is far too much to bother. But that’s the fundamental difference, in the early days every path was equally available for exploration. Now you’re pretty constrained in how you can do what you want to. Still lots to explore from there, but the complexity of the underlying implementation means it’s not quite so fun any more.