Usability became more important than flexibility. And intuitive operation prioritized over ease of learning.
There's a lot to be said for a harder to use computer with a learning curve, but which affords you more power to be a creator instead of a consumer at the end of the curve.
I'd go so far as to say that's better for us (as in, all humans).
Making computers accessible seems like a completely reasonable, sound priority. Yes, computer literacy is something we all need to work towards, but we'll never be in a world where the average person understands PKI, and saying that we should limit accessibility until they do is absurd.
My point is: it should be possible to use something without fully understanding the minutiae of how it works. We call this “user interface design”.
You should be allowed to live in a house without a full understanding of the architectural details that prevent it from falling down.
2000 years ago: "we'll never be in a world where the average person can read and write English"
I doubt this is even the point of GP.
Example:
Teaching fundamental abstractions before basing education on one set or another.
Teaching fundamental program sets/basics of toolchains (Think scripts, text editors, and intro to program compilation.)
Teaching fundamental protocols.
Teaching about infrastructure.
Teaching how to do X in Windows/Mac/Linux.
IN THAT ORDER. Notice that that curriculum, while it would likely have to choose one OS or another based on circumstances, focuses on what you can DO with a computer, and lays a foundation through which the neophyte user can begin to understand what a computer and the NET really are.
The NET isn't a pretty screen. It isn't one company's search engine, it's the means by which info goes from HERE to THERE. A computer isn't some mere calculator. It is an extension of our minds (and should be civically treated as such, but that's another post).
I can die happy if within my lifetime, my occupation in the tech industry becomes "unskilled" labor. For I will have contributed to finding a way to elevate mankind to a me level.
Why is this problematic? Why is more people having access to computing a bad thing? This is a dangerous, and (dare I say) elitist opinion. We're seeing positive impact, every day, thanks to the ubiquitously available computing resources.
If you'd like to use a computer with a learning curve, use a computer with a learning curve. Don't drag the whole world with you.
It might be a bit to deep an argument but where do you think intuition comes from? If we design peceaved reality after existing intuition you get a giant feedback loop that calls for ever more unrealistic representations.
Mabe an analogy can be had with electronics being mostly paralel processes while we can barely figure out how to implement it in higher languages. Our intuition likes the 1 thing at a time approach.
But then, of course, intuition is more useful for some people. For those people, no one is stopping you from digging into the engine itself. This is really the price discrimination idea applied to utility: offering a cheaper, easier to use interface (taking the bus) means now the bus is useful not only to the engineers, but the passengers as well.
The situation about computing is not really that much different. If you want to learn the internal of computers, Gentoo exists, feel free to use it. But should everyone use Gentoo? Not really. I'm probably more proficient in Linux than the average developer, but I don't see the need of using Gentoo myself either.
That is not to say we can't do better either. The signature design for SQLAlchemy is leaking abstractions (but in a good way). The average dashboard for a car today is way more complicated than the dashboard of a car 70 years ago. Yet, that's not stopping car ownership to grow. Maybe there's a lesson for us somewhere there as well.