So something that could be done by anyone with a paper, pen, and the technical know-how to operate a ruler, is now replaced by someone with a specialized domain knowledge that is creating something that will need to be maintained and likely obsolete in a few years. And they call this progress.
Maybe the list is for a public event, and they don't want people to call in or come to the office just to add their names.
Maybe the list got too long and difficult to manage.
Maybe the maintainer of the list wants to search for specific people without scanning the entire list.
Maybe the maintainer wanted to be able to email attendants without manually entering all the names.
I don't know the specifics of the project, so perhaps you're right. My point was not specific to the project; I was simply trying to allude to the fact that you don't have to be writing the software for rocket ships for it to be useful and productive.
