You're being pedantic about it; if Harry Shearer is bringing enough value to Fox for him to paid $300k an episode, then he "deserves" it the same way a star athlete, who generates millions of dollars for his team's franchise, "deserves" the exorbitant salaries they make.
"Deserves" is really otherwise a very subjective term - and just because you don't think someone "deserves" something doesn't mean they don't, so it's pointless to argue about it.
So, Microsoft changed the UI of Office because otherwise people would have stopped using it and started using OpenOffice or something else?
Yes and no... in reality, people would have kept right on using MS Office, but perception is reality - software companies, like MS, think they have to keep "innovating" in order to stay ahead. If they sit still, someone will pass them by... it's not true in this case, but that's the perception. It IS true w.r.t. the OS, but that doesn't mean the GUI needs to drastically change.
Now you have to worry about televisions becoming too complicated to use. Set top box user interfaces are pretty lousy too. Smartphones are portable containers of horrible interfaces so that you can be frustrated and annoyed anywhere you go. So if you give up on the computer altogether, soon you find yourself giving up on lots of things.
Interesting observation. I work in the television industry, and our studio TVs (the ones the hosts of the show watch) don't have obvious buttons anymore, they are hidden in the back, tiny black buttons on a black case with tiny black raised lettering as an indication to what they do... even in a well lit room you need a flash light and magnifying glass to be able to use them. Why? Because now they expect you to just use the remote... and every remote control is different. On top of that (and what I think you were actually referring to), the menu systems on TVs are all different... even often on different models by the same manufacturer and, as we're pointing out, every new model seems to have a different one.
Of course, it's not just those - my home TV isn't much better, but the ones in the studio are the "latest and greatest."
Even ordering food at restaurants is hard now. Oganic, vegan, vegetarian, pescetarian, paleo, low carb, high carb, free range home schooled beef, etc. There's a place my friends go to where you fill out a form for the type of burger you want; it's not always clear what's going on, like what side is included and which cost extra. Dammit, just give me my burger already and don't make me choose which type of ketchup it has.
An interesting episode of "Brain Games" discussed this - we're actually much more comfortable with a limited number of choices despite the fact our brains tell us that more choice is good.
I sometimes ask these UI wizards what they think would happen if I moved the keys on their keyboards around with every software release, in response to the latest theories on typing speed and accuracy, and perhaps added and/or subtracted a few just, well, just because I thought it would be a good idea. If one is, say, ten years old and just learning to touch-type, perhaps the new keyboard layout indeed would be better. However, the installed base of zillions of users that are used to, and expected to see, the old keyboard arrangement would be totally hosed, and would need to retrain themselves just to get back to the productivity levels they had before I "helped" them.
And when they complain, you can blame them for being archaic and wanting to stifle progress, that it's for their own good, and ultimately tell them "you're engineers, if you don't like it then build your own keyboards!" Because, of course, nobody is actually trying to do their work or anything.
The use of money is all the advantage there is to having money. -- B. Franklin
