Back to basics: bloatware vs. keeping things simple

I remember the first time I tried to download Easy CD. I was in a distant computer with broadband far from my house and wanted to burn some mp3s I downloaded quickly. I had a cd burner but no burning software.

I quickly found out that Easy CD was a 100mb or so download, and I could not be more surprised. A CD burning application that comes in the size of an iso image? Are they insane? Why should the burning application take 100 off my hard drive? (and this was 4 years ago.)

In a recent visit to Nero & Roxio websites I found out the situation today is much worse. Nero requires 288MB of 'permanent' disk space and Roxio's Toast requires 300MB of disk space.

Roxio and Nero forgot how to keep things simple. A burning application should just be able to burn cds and dvds. It shouldn't be the 1-stop-home-media-editor. It doesn't need a wave editor, and a photo organizer.

Disco is a new (very hyped) burning application. It is what one might call a trendy-eyecandy-ish burning application. But other than being really pretty, it has one important feature - it's an insanely small, 700 KB download! It's a small, minimal, simple application that helps me get things done and doesn't take too much space.

Why is that so special nowadays?