[anewhnaccount]

My understanding is historically simplified writing systems are met with a lot of resistance when there is a small educated class interested in holding on to their status since they are intended to help bring literacy to the masses. A sort of parallel can be drawn with the Luther Bible. This was a threat to an intellectual class (the clergy) who's status was in part due to their knowledge of Latin. A similar thing also happened with Hangul in Korea. Taiwan still uses traditional characters. Beyond these facts, I'm not sure of the particular connotations the grandparent is referring to.

[PeCaN]

Simplified Chinese isn't really any easier to read than Traditional (actually, learning Chinese I find Traditional characters a tad bit easier¹). It's just easier to write by hand. With computers and IMEs I would say there's not much difference in ease of reading or writing.

1. There seem to be more phono-semantic compound characters.