The most successful webpages are those where people are authors. People want tools that empower them to engage with their environment.
To say people don't want to "rewire" their products is like saying that you don't want to connect your Electric Guitar with a wire to the Amplifier.
Exactly. But not because they enjoy tweaking some website settings or enjoy the control over the layout of a page. No, the reason is connection with other people. They write a blog so that they get feedback from people. They post pictures to Instagram and Facebook to get likes and show off.
Connecting the electric guitar and repairing things with screwdrivers is seen by most people as a chore. Sure, techie, geeky tinkerers enjoy messing around with things, the same ones who enjoy configuring linux, for example.
I just haven't seen a single use case that would make sense in an everyday setting. Having a knob that controls the lamp? Well, lamps already have that, without being radio controlled.
If a car dashboard is designed well, then there's no need to remap the buttons. Very few people like to customize their stuff that much. If there is a trend in software (and hardware) it's that they remove options. We have less features and customizations than 10 years ago. Developers realized that people just mess their settings up and they call support. Also, the more options there are, the more bugs there will be. So now instead of supporting a myriad of settings, they just go with a default and leave it at that. Why don't we have the option of vertical browser tab arrangement in Chrome? Well, because they decided it's too complex and unnecessary for most users.
People just want to get their things done. They want to get business things done with other business people and they want to have fun with their friends.
The success of the Internet is all about human communication, sharing experiences (mainly through photos), and gossip.
Imagine building becomes so easy that it is more of an "amazing" experience for you then a "geeky" long lasting frustration.
I'm an AR developer and it's been disheartening over the past 12 months to see how little people actually want to do anything other than "like" things. Even posting comments seems to be a big leap for most people.
People like things to just work—and people also like to be able to customize things. I could see this concept being used as a superpowered versioned of IFTTT if it gets baked into products. People can tinker with building things, but there are also premade recipes that you can load and use.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule_%28Internet_culture%...