>Lotus Notes is used by millions of people, but almost all of them seem to hate it. How can a program be so bad, yet thrive?
I think half the issues people have with AI today are simply because AI has seen just as much slop in the real world as it has "good, clear code."
The boots on the ground cried "ugh, Lotus Notes!" in unison and just had to deal with byzantine key combos, nonstop client crashes/unresponsiveness, and moronic UI decisions some 3-person team made in like 1987.
I have opinions.
I don't recall the client having much crashing and unresponsive issues, but I do recall people finding the UI unintuitive compared to MS products, and of course the custom products built with Notes could vary quite a bit. But so does the web, particularly the early web.
But then you can say the same thing about people building Excel apps and that has been a selling point. Or Powerpoint presentations that people complain about but keep using.
It got so popular - you could do your work using Thunderbird instead of Notes - that Windows users wanted to run Linux VMs to run Fetchnotes and not have to use Notes.