A modern web page (with no hi-res images) can take >1GB RAM, when '90s web browsers typically took <1MB. Modern Adobe PDF reader takes >200MB, when some of the longest video games I’ve loved are <=10MB. Heck even a modern indie-made game with tons of gameplay is still sometimes <200MB.
The cause really is just shitty code and corner-cutting. Optimizing anything is rarely regarded as worth it nowadays, even if a small amount of work leads to 10x performance gains.
Software bloat is real.
A modern web page (with no hi-res images) can take >1GB RAM, when '90s web browsers typically took <1MB. Modern Adobe PDF reader takes >200MB, when some of the longest video games I’ve loved are <=10MB. Heck even a modern indie-made game with tons of gameplay is still sometimes <200MB.
The cause really is just shitty code and corner-cutting. Optimizing anything is rarely regarded as worth it nowadays, even if a small amount of work leads to 10x performance gains.