It's something people have been parroting ever since this Spolsky post from 2008 https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2008/02/19/why-are-the-microsoft-office-file-for

It's something people have been parroting ever since this Spolsky post from 2008 https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2008/02/19/why-are-the-microsoft-office-file-formats-so-complicated-and-some-workarounds/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2008/02/19/why-are-the-micros...