[branweb]

exactly correct. The question is not: "was software bloated in the 90s". It's: "given that hardware capability increased in by several orders of magnitude, did software quality/speed see a similar increase?" The answer is a resounding no. It would be like moving from a tricycle to a supersonic car and somehow taking longer to get from point a to point b.

[NegativeK]

I'll concede that we're not going supersonic, but our speed is maybe more at 100mph than slower. Computers (including phones, accomplishing the same tasks that desktops were) are absolutely faster than they were.

We also have better UX, more functionality, and better quality.

If people want to run the software of the mid-90s on modern hardware, I'm sure they can figure out a way. The upside is that when it crashes or you have to switch back and forth with modern software with greater functionality, the underlying system will let you do that very quickly.