> This kind of empathy with others will make you much more effective when you're creating for people who are not like you.

Empathy has nothing to do with it, most people who use computers are stupid or if they are smart have irrational traits. Our ancient primate brain is easily fooled.

Apple's ipod was not technically superior to competing MP3 players. Steve jobs was not a genius, he was just taking advantage of the fact that people are stupid and into fashion.

The same thing applies for most things, take the videogame industry. Anyone who knows how a computer works and is not irrational knows DRM and locked down games are bad for games, the enlightened rational minority is outnumbered by the irrational majority. So corruption, appearances, crap products and the superficial rule.