Word

I'm not a big fan of technology.


I prefer to keep things simple, and while technology improves the life of many, it also increases the misery of more than it improves.


Microsoft Word is a great example of the effect technology has on people's lives. I'd imagine when Word was first released, that it was quantum leap in technology, from paper to electronic documents is a huge improvement.


Subsequent releases of Word, have sought to make the software ever more complicated, adding waves of pointless features (remember the paperclip?), which increase the frustration of users as they hunt around trying to find the features that they actually want, such as writing a paragraph.


When the Word developers run out of new features, they move all the menu structures around so it takes you the next 2 months trying to work out how to open a new document.


This is all part of a bigger conspiracy, that works like this.

• PC manufacturer brings out a faster PC, so Word can run faster.
• Word developers see that there is excess capacity to run software, so they use this in the new release to add non value features.
• Word struggles on the fast PC because of all the bells and whistles.
• PC manufacturer brings out a faster PC to address this and with extra capacity so word can run faster.
• Word developers see that there is excess capacity to run software, so they use this in the new release to add non value features.
• Word struggles on the fast PC because of all the bells and whistles.
• PC manufacturer brings out a faster PC to address this and with extra capacity so word can run faster.

And we are in a loop.
This loop benefits the software manufactures and the PC manufacturers because they can pedal more gear, and nobody else benefits.
The trouble with this, is the consumer has to get on this train, because of backwards compatibility issues.


If a new Word release came out tomorrow, which was stripped down with none of the fancy graphics, and 'we'll fix your errors before you know you've made them, and fix the things that are right to start off with' feature, I'd be the first to embrace it.