"The original system requirements for Windows XP are almost comically low".
Is an operating system to only be taken seriously if it requires a significant amount of resources to run?
Is an operating system to only be taken seriously if it requires a significant amount of resources to run?
Microsoft thrives when people buy new PC hardware, because the easiest way to acquire a customer for a new Windows license is to bundle that license with every PC sold. [1] And Moore's Law provided great leaps in processing speed every year or so. So there was never any incentive to save on resources. Quite the contrary: A Windows release which pushed the envelope of compatibility with current hardware encouraged fence-sitting users to bite the bullet and buy a new PC -- with a new Windows license -- rather than watch their apps gradually slow down or become incompatible as app developers gradually introduced features of the new Windows into their codebases.
Among other things, think of it as a subtle form of copy protection. Back in 2001, you could buy one copy of Windows XP and install it on all of your Win98 boxes. But it would run like crap. Better to just buy some new boxes -- each of which comes bundled with a copy of XP.
Of course, once PCs and Windows became "good enough" the whole strategy fell apart. We seem to be in that world now. The new rage in consumer computing is netbooks and smartphones -- machines that deliberately throw away performance in exchange for other useful characteristics like "cheapness" or "lightness" or "low power consumption".
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[1] For years it was nigh-impossible to get a company like Dell to sell you a PC without a Windows license included. Linux users complained and fought for years over this "Microsoft tax". For all I know, this is still a problem.