Thomas Ptacek argues TUIs exist because of modems and Motif, and that agent-generated native UI removes the reason to build new ones

Sources: sockpuppet.org post, HN discussion
Summary: The argument is historical rather than aesthetic. Ptacek attributes the terminal user interface to two constraints that no longer hold, bandwidth over modems and the cost of building against Motif, and argues that a coding agent able to generate a native front end removes the remaining reason to start a new one. He separates command-line interfaces from TUIs and keeps the first. He rejects the accessibility argument for TUIs as probably false, citing a screen-reader talk and SwiftUI's separate semantic tree as evidence against it, and the one argument he grants is cross-platform reach, which he discounts on the ground that he builds for himself.
Why it matters: He separates CLIs from TUIs and keeps the first, and the argument he concedes least is accessibility, citing screen readers reading TUI border characters line by line against SwiftUI's separate semantic tree.