[Max-q]

Well, the bloat has made many programs slower than they could be. Software is eating up the advances we get in hardware. Modern Word 365 is not any faster than Word 95 on a Pentium 66 in normal use. That is a ~100MHz computer with maybe 16MB RAM, and a rotating hard drive.

Bloat making software bigger will in many cases also make it slower.

Also, the UX on Windows 95 was consistent and easy to learn. Now, much software fail on stuff like disabling a button when you have clicked it and the computer is working.

MacOS is on a steady curve to the bottom. It is not alone.

The software bloat and decreasing quality is a serious issue.

[djur]

I see this sentiment again and again, but the Windows 95 experience I remember included frequent spinning hourglasses, blue screens of death from faulty drivers, everything grinding to a halt when memory is near exhaustion or files are being copied between disks, tons of third party applications (and even Microsoft applications, like Office) that disregarded the Windows UI standards, constantly having to run CHKDSK and defrag, not to mention malware/virus vulnerability...

Latency when the system is under low load was definitely better, although a big contributor to that is changes in input and display hardware. But otherwise I'd much rather have today's "bloated" experience over the real world of the '90s.

[troupo]

Thing is, our computers are magnitudes of orders faster than 20-30 years ago. Why isn't our software orders of magnitudes faster? I'll settle for just 10 times faster.

If you take software from 20 years ago, and run it on modern hardware, it will be instant in most operations.

[djur]

Clock speeds certainly aren't orders of magnitude faster than they were 20 years ago. The vast majority of the performance improvements of the past two decades have gone into improved capability, stability, and security. I don't consider streaming 4K video to be "bloat" personally.

[ulfw]

Let's not forget the reinstalls to have the system perform properly again. I must have installed Win94 dozens of times over the years. I've never fresh-installed OS X once. I frankly don't even know how to do that with the current version.

[gizajob]

We need Stevesie to reincarnate and fire whoever is Scott-Forestall-ing it up this year.

[musicale]

I still think iOS was more fun in the Forstall-skeuomorphic era, and screen elements were easier to differentiate.

macOS icons also used to have distinct silhouettes which made them easier to distinguish, but now everything is a square tile. Screen controls which used to be visible and targetable are now hidden and are harder to hit when they do appear.

It feels like we are still under the tyranny of the (Jony Ivian?) streamlined aesthetic over usability and functionality, as if a library decided to organize books by size and color.

[musicale]

"What hardware giveth, software taketh away."

In the case of Apple, it's often Apple software eating up the benefits of Apple hardware.

Unfortunately subtle differences (such as improved reliability/security or a streamlined workflow) are lost in the computing market, where people are attracted to the new and shiny rather than the old and usable. Also designers like to mess with things.

[NikkiA]

Word 95 was utter bloatware compared to 2.0c though