I assume OP means slower on like-for-like hardware, rather than slower when run on a PC from the 90s, but to be fair the WinForms/WPF component of old GUI's was very fast even on legacy hardware.

> There is a lot more functionality to deal with everywhere. Just handling modern security, encryption, and certificate checking stack can take up more space than entire executables from the early 90s.

What does this have to do with bloated GUIs?

> Im fairly certain everyone who says this has simply forgotten how slow mechanical hard drives were. I occasionally have to pull out a very old laptop, hope that it still boots, and do something on it. Everything is so painfully slow in ways I forgot about. It’s refreshing to return to my modern PC.

I remember 98/XP running circles on mechanical harddrives compared to modern PCs on ultra fast SSDs. The fact that despite thousand times faster hardware we have slower performance is disgusting.

> If you don’t think modern apps have more functionality, I don’t know what to tell you.

Care to provide an example what modern applications have that older ones lack? Except for always—on connection and artificial bullshit imposed by modern OSs.

> Im fairly certain everyone who says this has simply forgotten how slow mechanical hard drives were.

Absolutely, but I would go even further with this. I can't prove it, but I would bet a lot of money that Windows 10+ has made using a spinning disk even slower. I would guess optimizations around disk access were entirely different in the XP era compared to now, when it is assumed everyone has an SSD.

Anyway, I had an old laptop that ran like absolutely dog shit. I put an SSD into it and it magically became usable again.