> Free software communities just don't, ironically, seem to have really had user empowerment as a core value since around the mid-90s or so.

Of course they have. Empowerment is not simply teaching people how to code, it's first and foremost giving control to users. Allowing them to understand how things work, why it changed, participate in the community to ask questions, surface bugs, and discuss on features. Change tools because formats are standardized and documented. Just like farmers using open hardware tools are not expected to be able to repair everything, but to have the right to repair the way they want.