It's because they distribute the versions that work offline instead of uploading all your personal information to the vendors. The free software distributors are very privacy conscious.
Online proprietary software sells you to advertisers for money, or locks you into an ecosystem so they can sell you to other third parties, and they use some of that money to fund development.
With free software you either have to improve it yourself (the source code is on the internet) or give them money so they can hire someone to do it (they all have donation links). If you're dissatisfied with the user interface, have you tried doing the things that cause it to be improved?
Rome wasn't built in a day, as they say.
Great looking software existed long before the rise of everything being always online.
Only if by "nothing to do with" you ignore that it is the method by which development is funded.
> Great looking software existed long before the rise of everything being always online.
At which time you had to pay a lot of money for it. If everybody gave the same money to free software developers, they'd have plenty of resources to build interfaces that are more to your satisfaction.
>If everybody gave the same money to free software developers, they'd have plenty of resources to build interfaces that are more to your satisfaction.
You're just arguing to pay for software, but in a more roundabout way. And again, great looking software existed far before the popularity rise in always-online.