The frustration in that Reddit thread is completely justified, and it points to something worth saying plainly: if adding two rows together requires six steps in Power Query, the tool has failed the user, not the other way around. The original poster is not asking for a complex data model or a bespoke transformation pipeline. They want a simple, repeatable operation: sum row 14 and row 15, then rows 34 and 35, then rows 54 and 55. That is not an exotic request. It is the kind of task that should take one line of code, not a small ritual of clicks and filters.
What makes this exchange so telling is the response from the community. Instead of acknowledging the friction, the advice defaults to "do more transformations" or "use a different tool." That misses the point entirely. The user already knows there are workarounds. They are asking why the workaround exists in the first place. When a tool's own users are telling you that a basic operation feels like a chore, the honest reaction is not to coach them into acceptance. It is to recognize that the tool's design has created a gap between what people need and what the interface delivers. That gap is not a user error. It is a design flaw.
The deeper issue here is about how we think about spreadsheet tools in general. Many of us have been trained to accept complexity as a natural part of the job. We are told that if we just learn the right sequence of steps, we will eventually be efficient. But that mindset lets the tool off the hook. The user in this thread is not confused or under skilled. They are making a reasonable demand: give me a way to do the thing I need to do, without turning it into a project. That is not entitlement. That is a baseline expectation for a tool that claims to handle data.
The practical takeaway for anyone reading this is not that Power Query is useless or that VBA is the answer. It is that you should expect more from your tools. If a task takes six steps and you know it should take one, that is not a personal failing. It is a signal that the tool is not meeting you where you are. And that signal is worth listening to, because it points to a real need: software that adapts to how people actually work, not the other way around. The next time you catch yourself explaining away a clunky process, ask yourself if you are solving a data problem or just accommodating a limitation. You deserve better than that.