Word is overkill for many, many things nowadays, including simple text editing. Just because one can purchase it, it does not mean one should.

Wordpad is part of Windows since 1995, so I am a bit surprised you've never heard of it, but that is beside the point. The point of this piece was that WordPad was perfect for its intended purpose and Microsoft had no good reason to render it obsolete.

Word is necessary for certain things having to do with long documents, corporate workflows and the like. It's not necessary to most consumers. In my opinion, Microsoft pushing people to purchase Word in order to edit the simplest of RTF files is a disgrace.