society
On early mechanical typewriters, the metal type-bars sat close together, and the odd arrangement of the letters was chosen to solve a very practical mechanical problem.
The QWERTY keyboard layout was originally designed to help prevent early mechanical typewriters from jamming. On those machines, letters were mounted on individual metal type-bars that would swing up to strike the paper, and if two bars commonly typed close together in quick succession were placed too close together mechanically, they could collide and jam, so QWERTY deliberately spread out many frequently paired letters.
The layout was not designed to maximize typing speed, in fact it arguably does the opposite in some respects, and it has no relationship to alphabetical order, its letter placement follows mechanical and frequency considerations from typewriter engineering rather than any alphabetical logic.
Even though modern computer keyboards have no mechanical type-bars left to jam, QWERTY has persisted purely out of widespread habit and existing muscle memory, and while alternative layouts designed for greater efficiency do exist, none have managed to displace QWERTY's entrenched dominance.
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