Alternative question: Why do I need to download 50 GB of book index to search for that one title and that index can't even do a full text search?
That complexity is Google (or your favourite search engine) running a datacenter indexing exabytes of data so that you can search it in the blink of an eye. Yes, it takes 600ms now instead of 50ms - but that's like complaining that your new eco car engine can't even properly run on aftermarket lamp petroleum.
What does google's datacenter for a book index have to do with editing a file or rendering a button? That doesn't seem relevant at all to Wirth's law and isn't an justification for the increase in abstraction that has made things slower.
That complexity is Google (or your favourite search engine) running a datacenter indexing exabytes of data so that you can search it in the blink of an eye. Yes, it takes 600ms now instead of 50ms - but that's like complaining that your new eco car engine can't even properly run on aftermarket lamp petroleum.