Conspiracy? Couldn't possibly be market forces at work. No, must be some grand conspiracy to make monitors the wrong size for programmers.
If it were simple market forces at work, I would have found it easier to avoid buying widescreen monitors and laptops. I couldn't; there wasn't an alternative choice.
Huh?
Imagine diagonal of X cm.
Imagine screen so tall and thin, that diagonal approaches vertical. Area is tiny.
As you swing same diagonal downwards, area increases. Till diagonal is 45% from horizontal.
As you keep going, area begins to reduce, until, when diagonal is almost horizontal, area is tiny.
Needing to get out more ...