I'd say it's necessarily complex for the things it is used for and neither bloated nor complex when used for purposes it was used for back in the C days.

But then again, I don't consider myself "normal".

They kind of are though... Took a lot of effort to find a recent car to replace one involved in an accident.

From built to fail American and European cars, to useless and distracting touchscreen controls, bloated subscription models for remote start that could be a button on the car keys and other "extras", failing CVTs that are expensive to replace (designed with no reparability like many parts nowadays), literally oil on the timing rubber belts that implode the engine after a few years if you delay expensive maintenance, etc.

Too many issues to list. Even the car we found with a traditional automatic transmission and physical buttons (some Mazda) without breaking the bank has data privacy issues if you don't disconnect the antenna that sells your driving habits to insurance companies to raise your premiums (I believe they or some other Japanese company had an issue that revealed the location data as well).

I'm convinced most cars peaked in the 90s and 2000s. You can add an after market stereo with android auto or apple carplay to optionally connect your phone (if you want) and attach a backup camera. Everything else seems to be made to extract the most amount of money from you due to the failed project north Americans are forced to buy into have a job.

Tldr: fuck cars somewhat.

Totally agree.

Also rolling your own data structures all the time isn't much fun.

I think Casey Muratori argues it's because even the things where it isn't necessary may be built upon by another project, whether it's a library or service, and the loses compound.

Fuck board etching! Real programmers use butterflies.