If this question is truly "serious"...as I do see all the fun responses. Pure and simple...abstraction. Look at the evolution of software languages. We as developers need to continue to work faster, more efficiently and more effectively to implement business solutions with time-to-market in mind. I've view it as an evolution of development...where I don't need to write code to interact with the network stack, input/output of any kind, or other basic operations...since .NET provides this. In addition, there are a multitude of libraries to assist in tasks that could take a long while to implement. Sure, you could argue C++ and libraries...or any other language, such as Java, which was stated...yet...it's about making it easier for developers to build a business-centric solution faster and easier to maintain (hopefully if you designed it well). So, in short...abstraction from the system. As others joked...toggle switches to machine language to binary....to.... .NET. :D