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The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think (2016)
(www.nngroup.com)
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this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2024
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The problem is the software isn't making it simpler to operate just by abstraction, much of it is by subtraction.
It's not turning two buttons with individual functions into one, it's removing a button all together, even for the people that knew how to use it.
The problem with the abstraction is, the more you rely on technology to replace certain skills, the more dependant on it you get, and the tech industry is getting less dependable and increasingly predatory when it comes to the users that are now dependent on them. That dependence also leads to more market entrenchment.
For example, if you don't know how to manage files, you are trapped forever with iCloud or OneDrive until they create easy ways to transfer everything seamlessly between clouds (and they won't). That's bad for users and for the industry overall.
Basically, without the skills, you have to trust the tech companies to guide you by one hand and not stab you with the other, and they are increasingly unworthy of that trust.
I built my entire cloud storage strategy around Google drive because it had very simple integration with my previous seed box provider. Like, I could run Plex from the cloud through them directly off of my Google drive and then mirror that to local storage.
Super slick and easily usable setup. In a push to completely de-google my life the past 2 years I had to figure out an effective migration strategy off of that stack.
It was a total pain in the ass. Not to mention moving the rest of the people on my family plan off of Google as well. The majority of them are fairly tech savvy and even with that in mind we struggled.
I am now 100% self-hosted and learned a shit ton about docker along the way but, I couldn't imagine trying to do the same thing with a group of entry level users.