> Which software exactly is functionally the same yet consumes more resources? Can you give some specific examples?

Compare basic document editing in Office 365 with Office 2000 running on Win2k. Sure, 365 has loads of additional functionality, and your data follows you across devices. But the base user experience is largely worse.

> It’s easy to forget that 20 years ago we had 800x600 screens, 24 bit color was not ubiquitous, and 60hz monitors were practically non-existent.

This was maybe the case in the mid-90's. But by the late 90's 1024x768, 85hz, and 24 bit color were standard. 1280x1024 and even 1600x1200 were not uncommon.