[Grumbledour]

But the bicycle for the mind idea goes further than programming your own system and doing creative works. Or rather, it starts smaller.

One example: When I encounter a word I don't know, in my native tongue or another language, how can I find out what it means? I can copy it to some service like google translate or an online dictionary. Maybe I even think of looking for a browser extension? But all these things are work and complicated. So I probably just read on. On my kobo reader, I can long press a word and get the dictionary entry. So I use that regularly to look up and learn new words which I would not if I always had to take out my phone and go online. Back in the day, google+ had a translate button, that would instantly translate text inline, which made it super easy to follow or even talk to people who wrote in a different language.

These kind of features are empowering! They use computers at what they are good at and they benefit most users who don't want to learn to program or customize their system. But they are few and far between in commercial systems or open source alternatives. An empowering system is not just one that you can customize, but also one that enhances the users own capabilities in meaningful ways. And there is a plethora of low hanging fruit there, we sadly are just too often stuck between "good enough" and "works for me"