In 1995, Niklaus Wirth wrote "A Plea for Lean Software" - abstract "Software's girth has surpassed its functionality [..] The paper discusses some causes of "fat software" and considers the Oberon system whose primary goal was to show that software can be developed with a fraction of the memory capacity and processor power usually required, without sacrificing flexibility, functionality, or user convenience"
That was discussed on HN in 2014[1] and right in the top comments is "I think one factor that leads to bloated, ruined software was missed... I don't know how common it is overall, but I have personally seen it ruin several very good products. And that is the simple fact that employers want their employees to remain busy. If a piece of software reaches a point of exceptional quality - the developers working on it still have to fill 40 (likely more) hours a week to appease bosses. And so they do the only thing available - they ruin the product."
That was discussed on HN in 2014[1] and right in the top comments is "I think one factor that leads to bloated, ruined software was missed... I don't know how common it is overall, but I have personally seen it ruin several very good products. And that is the simple fact that employers want their employees to remain busy. If a piece of software reaches a point of exceptional quality - the developers working on it still have to fill 40 (likely more) hours a week to appease bosses. And so they do the only thing available - they ruin the product."
[1] https://qqrl.tk/item?id=8301511