I'd say it's in the same general box as the simplicity of 8-bit computers booting into Basic interpreter, and the simplicity of Legos.
It's wonderful when you can have your toys in a sandbox where you use and develop them mostly for fun, and for scratching your own itch, away from well-moneyed interests. No need to carefully identify participants. No need to encrypt, or otherwise complicate the implementation. No need to efficiently serve millions of users. No need to add bling to attract more of those who barely cares. (The latter is not the case with Legos lately, though.)
This is why I think that a lot of innovation starts in the fringe, and looks like mostly useless toys, until one of these toys proves very useful for "real world" needs.
It's wonderful when you can have your toys in a sandbox where you use and develop them mostly for fun, and for scratching your own itch, away from well-moneyed interests. No need to carefully identify participants. No need to encrypt, or otherwise complicate the implementation. No need to efficiently serve millions of users. No need to add bling to attract more of those who barely cares. (The latter is not the case with Legos lately, though.)
This is why I think that a lot of innovation starts in the fringe, and looks like mostly useless toys, until one of these toys proves very useful for "real world" needs.