They might be referring to the fact that, eg, opening Microsoft Word today can take significantly longer than Word 2003 on Windows XP (or similar). See also Wir

They might be referring to the fact that, eg, opening Microsoft Word today can take significantly longer than Word 2003 on Windows XP (or similar). See also Wirth's Law[1] and such. EDIT: though they focus on the hardware-could-be-better side, rather than the software-could-be-less-awful side (: There have been some good outspoken critics of how software bloat has canceled out (or more) modern hardware gains. Casey Muratori, Jonathan Blow, and Mike Acton come to mind — they have some good material on the subject [2][3][4]. Some of the issues you mention, w.r.t. the hardware being discombobulated, are addressed in that first blog/video. No big surprise these people come from a video games background; video game hardware is traditionally much more tightly-bound-together. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirth%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirth%27s_law [2] https://caseymuratori.com/blog_0031 https://caseymuratori.com/blog_0031 [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-SOdj4Kkk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-SOdj4Kkk [4] https://youtu.be/rX0ItVEVjHc?t=4211 https://youtu.be/rX0ItVEVjHc?t=4211 (timestamp, but the whole talk is good)