You, Sir, are a heck of a lot more enlightened than you are believing yourself to be.
You described perfectly what is going on. Computers and phones today are just milking machines attached to each of us, and far as the software people (MS) are concerned, none of it is yours, not even the music or books you pay for.
Where you miss the mark is thinking that "old farts" need "simpler" machines. On the contrary. It was "old farts," when they were younger farts who drove the IMPROVEMENT of the machines and the software. Between XP and W7, computers were dumbed WAY DOWN for the operators, which is the way it always should have been for 98% of users, but they captured, hobbled and harnessed the users at the same time to milk them for "information" - "data." No, they don't care one bit about little ol' Bret and the piddly goins'-on in his life. Little ol' Bret's contribution is a drop in an ocean, and little ol' Bret can suffer exponential personal consequences for the meager bit they are tapping him for.
When I shopped for my wife's last laptop, W10 was ramping up and I had to shop hard, and actually find an older, refurbished model to get more memory and speed than the antique I was replacing for her. All the new ones were geared toward all the software (and all YOUR stuff) being stored on the cloud," so speed and space were less an issue and computers got less capable. They made computers more like phones.
I have no actual data to back this up, and won't waste my time digging it up, because only a few of us "old people" care, but programs (called "apps" now, and apps used to be too small and limited to be called a program) are designed such that if the unthinking populace can't figure out how to make it work within THREE point-n-grunt attempts (pokes, pinches and swipes), it's not good - it fails. It's all made so that even an ID-TEN-T (idiot) can figure it out!
The catch? If you're not an ID-TEN-T, the you can't figure it out! Problem is - you're thinking too hard. Stuff don't run on that antiquated fuel of brain cells any more.
I better shut up. This is starting to sound like a manifesto. I get onto a social commentary regarding technology and my own prejudices, conjecture and bitter, old-guy resentfulness bubbles over. But, TRULY, we under/mis utilize technology today. If you can get away from the brainless binky-application of it, it really is great, but we let it be used to milk us and most people think that's OK.