Partly because we have more layers of abstraction. Just an extreme example, when you open a tiny < 1KB HTML file on any modern browser the tab memory consumption will still be on the order of tens, if not hundreds of megabytes. This is because the browser has to load / initialize all its huge runtime environment (JS / DOM / CSS, graphics, etc) even though that tiny HTML file might use a tiny fraction of the browser features.

Partly because increased RAM usage can sometimes improve execution speed / smoothness or security (caching, browser tab isolation).

Partly because developers have less pressure to optimize software performance, so they optimize other things, such as development time.

Here is an article about bloat: https://waspdev.com/articles/2025-11-04/some-software-bloat-...