[octo_t]

The real analogy is that we're taking away pencils because writing in the wrong book can cause you to lose all your money and cause months of problems. And these books are disguised as your own diary, cookbooks, maps and the TV guide.

[blueskin_]

No, it's like taking away books because you can give yourself a papercut, or pencils because you can stab yourself with one - if you use common sense, you won't.

[doesnt_know]

As someone who has worked in the mobile pc support industry, what HN users would call "common sense" isn't really that common. I don't think developers and power users truly understand how common the huge gap is between them and non-technical users. I've given sessions on things as simple as mouse movement and basic GUI file management with drag and drop is a challenge.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely do not support "walled gardens" that are now becoming common and I don't think they are the solution to this problem. Power should always be left in the hands of the user, the solution is education. This is of course a social issue and one of gigantic scale. There are so many strong political hurdles to overcome that I'm not surprised that the industry has taken the approach it currently has.

[userbinator]

> Power should always be left in the hands of the user, the solution is education. 100% agreement. Of course, in some ways the industry doesn't want users to be educated, since then they would be hard to get to be under their control.