Sometimes the truth hurts, but no need to shoot the messenger...

If you don't believe me, look around you:

- Gmail? Goes easily to >300 MB of RAM usage when doing nothing

- Android apps? You can barely have 2 calculator apps active at the same time, on a 8 cores, 8GB ram device. The own Google "sms app" takes "180 MB" of storage...

- Let's talk about Wordpress or electron apps for PC that easily consume 50% of a quad core high end laptop?

Just as a point of comparison, in the 80's when gethostbyname was created, supercomputer were at most capable of having CPU of 200MHz. Fast forward 40 years, you have now in your pocket a computer that is easily a hundred times faster. Even without taking into account the processing power of GPU, network cards, ... But still, software quality did not follow the same trend.

You're comparing apples and oranges.

None of the examples you listed (Gmail, Wordpress, Electron, Android) have draconian resource constraints, and developers put a heavy emphasis on shipping new features and ease-of-use. The cost of customers lost due to resource bloat is far lower than engineer hours put into optimization - the reality is that customers simply do not care.

For niches that are still constrained, the "quality" you are reffering to is called "efficiency" and it didn't go anywhere since the 80s (in fact it improved due to superior tooling)

I've worked in embedded where I had to come up with ways to shave bytes and kilobytes, now I work in web development and I absolutely don't care about performance. My server costs me 15 bucks a month, I can double it 5 more times before optimization becomes remotely profitable for me.

Like you, no one care anymore, and this is why everything is getting shitty.

Device works less well and are throwable, users have miserable experiences. Huge amount electricity and resources are wasted.

It sounds based.