You have to remember that this was 2001. Back then using a computer was nowhere near as prevalent despite it only being 17 years ago.

Microsoft and Apple had to do something to make computers more approachable and look less like they were only for the tech crowd.

Computers are still for the tech crowd, as smartphones prove :)

After all, 1 billion computers out there and soon 6+ billion smartphones.

Yep. People are still scared of computers or see them as appliances. They never had a chance.

There's good reasons for that.

Computers are a tool, and for a long time hardly anyone really needed that tool. By the 90s they were becoming a pretty significant part of every business, so we started to see the proliferation of computers in a home office and applications geared toward enabling the user to use a computer more effectively as a tool.

Then the internet happened. Now a lot of people were starting to own computers as a pure consumption device, a task for which it was never really the appropriate choice, just the only one. Consequently we started seeing the dumbing-down of everything, the locking away of "dangerous" functionality, the coddling, and the condescension.

Then smartphones and tablets became the consumption device of choice, so desktop computers went back to being tools, right?

Sadly no. Instead developers doubled down on the condescension and the locking down. Instead of trying to make computers into better tools again, they just try to make them more like smartphones.

I got into computing because of the promise it represented as a personal tool to enhance lives, and now I loathe it for what it has become.

Back in the early 80s, the IBM my father brought into the house was used for production just as much as it was used for consumption. I feel that balance has since been lost.