Yes, and it almost always tends to be people who barely use their devices to their full capabilities. Power users know better - they use whatever tool is best for the job.
"Power users" are more often than not the ones doing the all arguing. HN and Reddit are the best examples of that.
People who just buy the newer version of their favorite phone don't even care enough to argue.
Even the people who care too much about blue or green bubbles don't give a damn about which phone has more RAM or CPU, or which OS is better, or UX, or whatever. They never stop to compare.
You could say in a sense, people who care about whether the recipient of a text has imessage do care about UX, I just wish the avg person understands that most if not all of the features and consistency imessage provides can be achieved with signal or whatsapp.
Point is they rarely care about which platform has better UX, similarly to how they don't care about how much RAM the competitor has or the CPU. Only few people stop to compare, even less make time to argue about it.
Of course normal users care about UX, even if they don't know what the acronym means.
I highly doubt most who claim to be "Power Users" on the internet would be classified as such in the truest sense of the word; they simply enjoy complaining about trends in technology, & engage in posturing & outrage when a feature or design is gradually phased out over time. Most who extol the supposed "customizability" of android phones are highly unlikely to use any feature they mention on a day-to-day basis. Android's most useful feature, in my opinion is to side load apps. However, it seems this isn't something most android foresee the average user utilizing on a daily basis, and possibly as a vulnerability; from my understanding, modern android phones require you to enter a password to enable the side loading of apps. It's cell phone, I really dont' understand these advantages outside of say price point (apple cannot compete with android when it comes to budget), and the flexibility of side loading software in extenuating circumstances(say the app store complying with a government's request restrict access to e2ee messaging apps).
> Power users know better - they use whatever tool is best for the job.
I completely agree, actual power users simply use the device that is the best fit for an application, rather than crusading in the replies of threads across various sites, spreading the word of how greedy & terrible the design decisions <insert company here> makes.
The same self proclaimed "power users" will often imply that individuals who choose to use certain products possess lesser tech literacy. I don't really understand the logic behind that sentiment; obviously if a company markets their products as "just working", it will attract the average person. That's not an indication of tech illiteracy or laziness, it makes sense. Why wouldn't I want my cell phone to simply "just work?" on demand, with as little friction as possible (i.e software updates, particularly security updates are pushed out in a timely manner, overall software stability)? I know plenty of extremely tech literate people (PhDs in Computer Engineering & Computer Science) who choose to use an iPhone year after year. If you're expending most of your mental energy in your research & work with technology, why would you want the communication device you use on a daily basis to be something you have to tinker with, and configure in a non-standard way? That sounds like something I would do with say a raspberry pi, a piece of technology that I like employ my above average understanding of tech on, to customize it or achieve some really neat end goal.
Also to add, I agree, non standard hardware design is anti user and annoying, but apple doing so is not news, (in other news, the sky is blue type thing). If we want to prevent this, we need to push for regulations that force apple to comply.