The bloat is real, but it’s not all bloat. We ask for a lot more from our software today. Simple example: rendering text isn’t that simple when we expect full Unicode support.

It’s not altogether different from how everything seems to be much more expensive than it was in the 1950s. There are many real and concerning reasons for that, but one less concerning reason is that we have higher standards and expectations now, and that translates to higher cost.