The basic editor in WordPress has not changed significantly since it was introduced.  It has a content box and some options for formatting the text

Keeping things simple

It was made easy to use standard HTML styles such as headings, so that you could create good looking pages without having to mess with too much styling.

You can add images to the page and WordPress will make sure that the words do the right thing around them.

Links can be programmed without going into the nitty-gritty.

WordPress meant that anyone who could use a keyboard could create a nice blog.