It's not that hard if your taxes are simple (standard deduction, maybe some capital gains). Keep in mind the filing companies have an incentive to make the process complicated.

I don't think the filing companies are actively making the forms harder to fill out by hand, but the problem is that the IRS has no incentive to minimize the time it takes to file taxes.

Actually, big accounting firms and tax automation companies spend a lot of money lobbying congress to keep the tax code complicated. It would save everyone a lot of time and money if the IRS would just tell us what we owe - they already know the answer, it's not like they just blindly accept whatever we say.