[fogihujy]

This is not a part of the war on general purpose computing; it's a part of the effort to make Eternal September to end by making software that works for everyone.

As it is, this entails limiting the users' freedom to tinker in such a way that they simply cannot screw things up no matter how hard they try. Because, you know, if users have that option, then someone will take advantage of it and screw things up.

This line of thought has powerful political and philosophical backing, as digitalization is seen as the magic bullet that will solve a wide array of issues throughout society, and the general idea seem to be to protect people for their own good. Incidentally, it's often the most profitable route as well, as it's the only way to get non-technical users on-board.

[heavyset_go]

> As it is, this entails limiting the users' freedom to tinker in such a way that they simply cannot screw things up no matter how hard they try.

I've had my parents on Ubuntu Linux for a while now for exactly this reason: no matter what they do, they aren't going to screw things up, even if they tried. It just works.

So far there have been no complaints and no issues.

[fogihujy]

Ditto with my in-laws and Linux Mint. Thing is, they don't really care about tinkering (just like most people) and so they don't care. Allowing them to tinker would benefit them very little, while it would definitely increase the risk of them screwing things up.

[rusk]

That’s the cover story LOL

[fogihujy]

It's the official story, no matter how you put it. I'm not saying it's a good thing (in fact, I find it horrible), but it is what it is and I have no idea on how to turn that tide.

There's a lot to be said about freedom of computing, but the fact remains that given the option to screw things up, then some people will do that. At the same time, we have a culture that incentivize catering to the non-technical users in a way that prevents them from screwing things up.

Long story short: If we want to turn this trend, then we need to:

1) Start telling non-technical users that any damage caused through their freedom of action is their own responsibility.

2) Produce competitive products that not only provide the desired amount of freedom, but which also compete on price, desirability, usability and the impression that the products are secure enough to use.

In many cases, 1 will be seen as a way of avoiding responsibility, and it'll take a tremendous amount of effort to convince users (and consumer protection agencies) that they should be less protected just in case someone else decides to tinker with their product. That alone makes 2 more or less impossible.

[rusk]

I really think this line of thinking is overegged. It is one thing to make a device easy to use, yet quite another to lock them out for creative purposes.

[fogihujy]

It's not about making things easy to use, but about making them harder to break. Creative tinkering is simply not taken into the consideration for most consumer products. Things like support load, RMA rate and consumer protection laws is.

[rusk]

Like I say. It’s a cover story. They could make devices serviceable at the same time but it is more convenient for them not to, and to even push the envelope of what’s acceptable.