Today is a great time in the computer industry. The tunnel, of course, is the incredibly rapid rate of change in the industry. While the glass house made the system inaccessible to mere mortals, it also had the positive effect of protecting the system. Back then, buying a software package was a big affair. Software packages simply weren't available unless long-term service was purchased, and some operations just couldn't be done without the vendor's assistance, so service contracts were always purchased.
Machines are hundreds of times more powerful for their size, and prices have dropped significantly.
Due to the vast market expansion, desktop software is far cheaper than mainframe software, and the free flow of information on the Internet has often made expensive long-term service contracts go the way of the dodo bird. There is a downside to all this goodness. This marketing effort is instead targeted at the least sophisticated users in the organization. As a result, the users start yelling for the latest and greatest from upper management, who, as they seem to have received their computer education from articles written by imbeciles for airport in-flight magazines, eventually capitulate and trigger a round of software upgrades. Of course, the newer software is slower, and this inevitably triggers another round of hardware upgrades.