Stross is not wrong. But he does miss a few reasons for disliking "Word".<p>1. At heart, "Word" wants to create paper-printable output. But it doesn't show you "what you get", but rather a loose approximation. Without a lot of effort, a book typeset with "Word" is clearly distinguishable. Promising "WYSIWYG" and not delivering on the "WYG" is pretty damning.<p>2. The basic user interface is for beginning computer users in 1985, say. It was designed for people who knew how to type using a typewriter. It has not gotten better, or different, despite all of us ditching our typewriters decades ago. There's no way to progress in the "Word" user interface. We're all stuck using a typewriter imitator.