It's iconic and a useful accessible place to see all your apps. That was its core goal, and it still delivers that today, in arguably a much simpler, easier to manage way than in years gone by.
I think the key thing to note is MacOS has the Launcher, a place where all apps are listed. Prior to that, a list of apps were only accessible via Finder Apps folder, and the dock was auto populated as apps were installed. With the upcoming MacOS 26? release it looks like Launcher is becoming more menu like, rather than full screen, which I think shows how useful such a feature actually is.
At the end of the day, the vast majority of users will rely on the Start Menu for accessing their apps. While there are many other ways to go about it, it's actually a very well designed, simple, yet feature rich menu (obviously with some issues) that make using a computer so damn simple. And that's why Microsoft needs it, because Windows isn't Linux.
Is the Start menu needed? Yes.
Is it needed in its current form? No.
I run lubuntu, it has all my apps sorted into categories, a bunch of preferences and system tools, the option to turn off, and search. It's all in a small rectangle and does everything you need it to.
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