It might be an over-adjustment from the software designers. In the early days of software, there was a larger fraction of power users, who wanted lots of options and were willing to fiddle with them. However, settings were often an excuse for not having sensible defaults, auto-detection, context-sensibility and other things for a fluid user experience.
Then came a wave of companies focusing on UX with great success, who often dropped settings to focus on "magic" functions etc. This means UX becomes correlated with less settings, but removing options does not help users - on the contrary! But unfortunately it gives the impression that settings are bad for UX.
Then came a wave of companies focusing on UX with great success, who often dropped settings to focus on "magic" functions etc. This means UX becomes correlated with less settings, but removing options does not help users - on the contrary! But unfortunately it gives the impression that settings are bad for UX.