I think your average geek used to be like, somewhat academic and erudite and into arcane knowledge and had some level of good faith of wanting to engage in discussion
Now it’s all frauds and absolutely braindead elon stans and crypto dipshits and conservative freaks and people who enjoy and defend watching big tech destroy everything.
. . . and forcing people to pay, through relentless licensing schemes.
What they created wasn’t great, it was standard fare. Their “genius” was in ruthlessly demanding you didn’t own what they made, you only got to run it by paying tribute. It worked.
Other systems and hardware from that era were either absorbed or destroyed because microsoft becamse a monopoly quickly, and used that power to do so.