You're confusing simple and easy.

For the rare occasion when the author doesn't mean easy when they say simple, they should probably clarify that they mean non complex and difficult.

words have different meanings; the root sense of 'simple' is 'one-fold', that is, only having one layer rather than two or four, and that sense is still present in phrases like the spanish hoja simple, meaning 'one-ply' (toilet paper, for example), but it's had multiple meanings for thousands of years including 'mentally disabled', 'honest', 'harmless', 'pure', 'unadorned', and, as you point out, 'easy'

it's true that using a word with multiple meanings gives rise to ambiguity, and avoiding that by choosing a different word is desirable

unfortunately there isn't a better term for 'simple' in the sense of 'not possessed of much detail' or 'composed of very few parts'; saying 'non complex' doesn't really help because 'complex' is often used to mean 'difficult' for the same reason 'simple' is often used to mean 'easy'

except in hucksters' advertising brochures, i don't agree with your implicit assertion that all the polysemic complexity of 'simple' is merely historical, leaving only 'easy' as a live meaning; i think all the meanings i listed above except for 'harmless' have some currency today, even merely in english

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/simple#Adjective lists nine main meanings of which seven are current, though i admit i just added the 'easy' one myself; it wasn't listed previously (i think because of confusion induced by the polysemy of 'complicated')

I do sometimes think there are other words that might be more appropriate for the context: parsimony or consistency are related concepts that could be more precise.

But there are some things that are just simple, like a Bankers Box.

'parsimonious' is a pretty decent word here

we could try defining a new word for specifically this sense of 'simple'. for example, 'fivous', 'blorsy', 'bonatchy', 'jatomurous', or 'wislous'. the problem is that if the word gets adopted, it's likely to undergo the same sense shifts as its synonym 'simple'

> except in hucksters' advertising brochures, i don't agree with your implicit assertion that all the polysemic complexity of 'simple' is merely historical, leaving only 'easy' as a live meaning; i think all the meanings i listed above except for 'harmless' have some currency today, even merely in english

Look at this comment thread and count all the instances where people are complaining that 'simple' is being used to describe difficult things:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35759449

I'm not the only one who thinks that 'simple' should mean, in technical docs, 'easy'.

git gud

Related: the great and timeless talk called "Simplicity Matters" by Rich Hickey - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI8tNMsozo0

(By the way, any talk by Rich Hickey is worth watching)

It sounds like you're confusing familiar (and popular) with simple.