I think the issue is that back then, you only did important things with software. Now there is so much code doing the same simple things. Like how many ways does a person need to input thier birthday… and every tool we use… if it is good it gets more and more expensive, and more and more cluttered as they try to expand thier market. So now a new cheaper tool that does the same thing gets written. I would bet 90 some % of code is copies of other code with scientifically meaningless difference. But someone has to write it all…