> performs about the same as MS Word did on a 486 with a floppy
Except (gdocs for comparison) I now can:
1. Effortlessly access the doc on multiple devices, wherever there is cell or WiFi.
2. See a visual history of every change I've ever made to the doc.
3. Collaborate with many other people in real time.
4. Easily incorporate images, tables, drawings, and other files.
5. Compare documents.
6. Use other character sets and emoji.
7. Add, have others add, and review comments.
I'm sure there's more. I don't remember everything about how primitive things were 30 years ago.
ahh, the no true scotsman style of logical fallacy.
Document processing is not strict nor defined. The features listed in the parent comment are all very useful, and if the floppy disk document processor of 30 years ago could do it, the people there would also find it useful.
Yes they would find it useful, but in terms of productivity what's it worth? For the things that aren't collaboration, it's probably single digits. Real-time collaboration is worth a lot for certain documents, but also you could have managed that on a 486 if you had a modem.
It’s even stronger than you suggest, the actual “word processing” bits turned out to be a vestige of a paper world and “collaborative text editing” was actually the killer feature.
Except (gdocs for comparison) I now can:
1. Effortlessly access the doc on multiple devices, wherever there is cell or WiFi. 2. See a visual history of every change I've ever made to the doc. 3. Collaborate with many other people in real time. 4. Easily incorporate images, tables, drawings, and other files. 5. Compare documents. 6. Use other character sets and emoji. 7. Add, have others add, and review comments.
I'm sure there's more. I don't remember everything about how primitive things were 30 years ago.