Why is this just so much more fun than trying things online?

I bought so many games because I became addicted to the demos, particularly a few Sierra games.

I suspect the constraints made it better. You’d already dropped a small amount of money on the magazine, built up the anticipation of getting it home, and now you were definitely going to give the demo a good whirl.

Also, demos /shareware were an important marketing mechanism back then, companies took them seriously.