@odr_k4tana@infosec.exchange@Gargron@mastodon.social My parents come from a generation of people who had to learn to do their own stuff – you had to be a bit of a carpenter, a bit of a plumber, a bit of a car mechanic, a bit of a farmer, a bit of a tailor. It wasn't a question of pride or hobby or interests, it was a quesiton of self-reliance and survival – most people didn't have the means to bring their clothes to a professional tailor or drop their car off for an oil change.
In my generation, people had to learn how to use a computer and fix some common problems – yes, even people who weren't interested in tech or programming. Not knowing how to use a computer was akin to not being able to drive a car – it meant that you were always dependent on somebody else to help you.
My problem with modern computer interfaces is not that they're making things too accessible – my problem is that this simplicity comes at a cost. You can only obfuscate and dumb things down to a certain point before basically making it so that using your product doesn't require the user to have even the most basic knowledge of computer interfaces.
Before you know it, you've raised a generation of people who don't know how to fix the simplest of issues with their software (let alone hardware). If "reinstalling Windows" was the oil change of my generation (you could probably do it, but it's messy, and you don't have the time), people who grew up with modern dumbed down mobile OSes would have their car towed because they left the handbrake on, and when told, would ask you "what's a handbrake?".
Yes, learning how to work with computers takes time and effort, it requires learning a new skill – but so does everything in life – reading a book, cooking, driving a car, playnig a videogame. I think eliminating any possible friction and asking nothing of the user in terms of skill, just because "not everyone is interested in tech, people just want to get on with their life" is akin to refusing to learn how to cook or drive. It makes you dependent, and in our isolated and lonely modern world, most likely you will be dependent on big tech companies like DoorDash and Uber (and with computing – Google, Anthropic and OpenAI), rather than your family and friends. Personal computers are as ubiquitous and crucial in our lives as food and transport, and in my opinion, there's no getting around it – you *have* to learn it whether it's your interest or not, just for the sake of survival.
