Mannerisms

It's worse than that. It's not once upon a time, but many times upon many times.

Viz:

Once upon a time, a very clever man decided to build a very fast chip. However, the chip turned out to be as temperamental and difficult to handle as a racehorse - it would indeed go very fast, but only if handled very carefully.

"Never mind", thought the very clever man. "It's very fast. Everyone will be happy to learn how to ride it."

But they didn't. The chip was a flop.

"That's OK", thought the very clever man. "I'm a very clever man. I'll build another very fast chip, but give people a compiler that adds all the cleverness to make the software work."

So he did make another chip, and spent lots of time and money making a compiler that knew all about the chip, and when it worked (which was quite a lot of the time, considering) it was fabulous, and gave it away.

Nobody used it. The chip was a flop.

"Ungrateful bastards," thought the very clever man. "I know. I'll make a whole stable of very fast chips that work together as a team, and I'll make a compiler that knows how clever they are and does the hard work, and I'll spend lots and lots of money telling people how to ride them like they do in circuses, all cantering around the place with feathers and sparkle. Sure, you'll have to stand on the back of one and learn how to handle eight reins at once, but won't that be fabulous?"

Which he did. And nobody used it.

"What is WRONG with you people?" the very clever man ejaculated at length. "I gave you a fantastic racehorse. All you had to do was to learn how to ride to Grand National standards. I gave you an even more fantastic racehorse, all you had to do was work around the bugs in the compiler. And now I've given you a circus full of racehorses - all you have to do is learn to stand on their backs at 30 miles an hour, in a spangly bikini, while grinning and waving a flag. What on earth do you WANT?"

And the people looked up from their ploughing, over the back of the carthorse that was actually helping them grow turnips, and said "If you can't guess, we're not going to tell you."

(NB - all of the above is literally true. Except the bit where the very clever man asks "What on earth do you WANT?". This is clearly fantasy)

How true, Rupert, how true. The Grand Delusion of the Techie down the ages is that the world will buy a better mouse-trap regardless of cost, ease of use or reliability.