Simple question, simple answer: The reason for all the bloatware, is because Programmers will link & compile entire libraries of code into their application, even if they're only using one or two functions from that library.
Much of this article struck a chord with me. My first programming job out of college was with a financial services company, that specialized in car dealership management software. The first version of the entire application ran on a single 1.2mb floppy - and that included months worth of sales and service records. Granted, this was back in 1987.
In 1990 when I left, the code was up to 3mb to run, with a months sales taking up another 3mb. As we added functionality, our function libraries got bigger and bigger. When we switched programming tools, our code base tripled, simply from the nature of the compiler, and the necessary re-write of the code to utilize NEW function libraries.
This article makes perfect sense, the author is spot on. The tools to create the applications are hogs. The libraries required to write code and add functionality are hogs. Programmers (self included) are hogs because we're lazy. We'll gladly link in that entire function library to get the ONE function we need. As long as we don't have to write it from scratch, it's fine by us.
And in most cases this is a good thing to do. Every line of code you don't write is a line that won't have a bug. I'll gladly use libraries that reduce the amount of code I have to write, even if the resulting program is bigger. I'll work faster, and users will get better reliability.
Unfortunately, too often today programs seem to be bigger *and* buggier, so linking libraries may not be the culprit there.