The less pager was explicitly created out of annoyance with more, the original Unix text pager. As files grew massive, impatient devs tired of more’s inability to navigate backward through files. So they cheekily built a superior replacement and christened it less—because, obviously, “less is more.” Unix humor at its finest: solve your frustrations, improve functionality, and throw sarcastic shade at previous devs simultaneously. Sysadmins today blissfully type less, completely unaware they’re perpetuating decades-old passive-aggressive developer feuds.
