It’s definitely not human nature and is, instead, an improbably well coordinated conspiracy by a gigantic corporation known for being full of internal conflict over a span of decades to engineer helplessness in users. Whereas we all know that users are normally such resilient, inquisitive souls, more than willing to engage with a piece of technology in order to understand it. Or they were, until Microsoft attacked. Alas, if only it were not for the great evil empire, all would be well. At least this very real conspiracy serves the additional purpose of flattering the community’s vanities and affirming its values as both morally correct and intellectually superior. So we got that going for us, which is nice.
I bet if we mapped out the relationships between various CEOs and boards of directors we could predict these selections rather well…