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Comment by 0xedd | Hacker News Reader

Sure, because you've been limited to a high degree. Apple showed the world you can treat your customers like thick headed babies and they'll be thankful. Android is following suit. Slowly eroding the freedom we once had and the invitation to do more than the default.

Look at this, for example https://developer.android.com/about/versions/10/behavior-cha...

Why? Let me handle permissions. Don't choose, for me, whether I can chew steak or not.

End of the day, we're trained to be idiots. School teaches us nothing. Products treat us like babies, strengthening idiocy. I mean, if a device breaks, we call the service guy and don't try and repair it ourselves, right? Because "changing a battery is life threatening. It must be outlawed." (- Apple) People are convinced, by ads and media campaigns, that all this is good. People are convinced they are using luxury devices.

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My more cynical take is that Apple fans have lives and they don't live for computers, as I do.

They want the PC (a 'smart' 'phone') to get out of their way, and if it doesn't work, they'll just go do something normal people do, like a platonic dinner party or a drinking party.

> normal people do, like a platonic dinner party or a drinking party.

Hopefully more food pictures & selfies will emerge

I'm struggling to think of a reaction besides "what a textbook case of Stockholm Syndrome."

We certainly agree that there has been an erosion of computer skills among the younger generation(s) raised on appliance-like computing devices. No argument there. This is a loss. Full stop.

Where we might differ is the question of whether or not this is a good thing in the larger context. The fact that everybody had to become subject matter experts in personal computing just to be effective with a personal computer in the 1980s and 1990s was a byproduct of the fact that personal computing was incredibly buggy and user-unfriendly for multiple decades. If everything in life was as balky as computers were, we'd never get anything done as a freaking human race. How many f'ing hours did we waste as a human race just getting printer drivers to install?

I mean, think about all the hours you spent just getting printers to work and PCs to connect to the internet back in the day. It was rewarding in its own way, and it led to careers for many of us.

Now imagine if everything was like that. Imagine if you couldn't use your car, the HVAC system in your house, or kitchen appliances effectively without hundreds of ours of ad-hoc experience gained through troubleshooting.

For those that want to get their hands dirty, there's Linux and craploads of free development tools even on Mac and Linux. And for those that don't give a crap, computing devices function pretty well as appliances these days.

I agree completely. I'm in my 40s and, at this point, on this topic, I feel like Cypher in the Matrix. Plug me back in and I don't want to understand any of this shit anymore.

I want to understand it but only when I am making something that requires me to understand it

I don't want to understand it when I just want to like, print out my car insurance card or do some mundane life task

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