I read somewhere that Windows 98 sold 15 million licences. Add in OEM machines and you've got a base of computer users in maybe the 100-200 million range - most of whom either had to use the device for work (which meant training) or had a level of enthusiasm for computing (which meant self-learning).
Today there are 7-odd billion smartphones out there. Most users just want something that gets things done with as little friction as possible.
Who uses these things and how they use them has changed beyond all recognition.
>Most users just want something that gets things done with as little friction as possible.
It's funny to read this as someone that always dreads having to get a new phone, or install some proprietary app, or reinstall a Windows VM, or sign up to some service, exactly because I know how much friction is going to be deliberately put in my way from every party involved.
"No you can't just change your phone's service provider", "No you can't unlock your phone's bootloader", "No you can't just boot into a new copy of the OS without signing into a bunch of things", "No you can't install this Windows image on a device without a trusted platform module", "No you can't just install a program from the web", "No you can't just look at all the files on your phone", "No you can't just have an app sync photos from the SD card", "No you can't create a login without giving us your phone number", "No you can't opt out of our 'telemetry'", "No you can't view the video you're paying for without the right OS/browser/monitor/cable".
Coming soon: "No you can't view the URL of the page you're on", "No you can't install an ad-blocker", "No you can't access this site without an attested, locked-down OS-browser stack", "No you can't install a different OS on this PC", "No you can't use a local, unlicensed generative AI model".
I think it's time we reframed the discussion and stopped dumbing users down and pretending that extremely anti-user behaviour is "user-friendly". Using technology used to be challenging because the hardware and software were still being bootstrapped to a point where it was fast, simple and bug-free to use. Now the experience of using technology is to have to navigate some corporate bureaucracy in every direction, which is totally independent of tech limitations.
In a better world, all schools would have computer literacy classes that did more than teach kids how to use Microsoft Office. Actually teaching them how computers work instead of siphoning them into learned helplessness just so big tech can keep on raking in billions.
I read somewhere that Windows 98 sold 15 million licences. Add in OEM machines and you've got a base of computer users in maybe the 100-200 million range - most of whom either had to use the device for work (which meant training) or had a level of enthusiasm for computing (which meant self-learning).
Today there are 7-odd billion smartphones out there. Most users just want something that gets things done with as little friction as possible.
Who uses these things and how they use them has changed beyond all recognition.