alt Hacker NewsI've always considered the Mac's shared menu bar a GUI 1.0 mistake that should have been fixed in the transition to OS X. Forcing all applications to share a single menu that's glued to the top of the screen, and doesn't switch back to the previous application when you minimize the one you're working with, is dumb.
Windows and Unix GUIs had it right: Put an application's menu where it belongs, on the application's main frame.
But now on Windows... NO menu? Oh wait, no... partial menus buried under hamburger buttons in arbitrary locations, and then others buried under other buttons.
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...The Mac menu bar is what it is for a very good reason. Being at the top of the screen makes it an infinitely-tall target.
All you have to do to get to it is move your mouse up until you can't move it up any more.
This remains a very valuable aspect to it no matter what changes in the vogue of UIs have come and gone since.
The fact that you think that you've "minimized the application" when you minimized a window just shows that you are operating on a different (not better, not worse, just different) philosophy of how applications work than the macOS designers are.
I fully agree with you that the menu bar placement in macOS is really weird and confusing and rather inconvenient (regardless of any claimed benefits per Fitt's Law). It's ironic that it ended up being a benefit in the age of UX enshittification solely because it forces apps to have the menu in the first place (although I increasingly see apps that do the bare minimum there and hide the rest behind hamburger menus in the apps).