brax

No, I don't mind them making things easier at all. It's when they make them easier at the cost of making the useful power features harder to get to (or removed altogether).

I'm also not expecting people to be able to understand complex technical troubleshooting or anything either.

I'm just expecting that people understand the basics of Windows usage. How to min/max a window, what a start button is, what a taskbar is, how to copy/paste text, how to end a task in the task manager (to name a few things). Nothing new, nothing fancy. The windows 7 "Devices and Printers" style window is something I would expect any user to handle if they need to map a networked printer, or see what devices they have connected in the simplest way.

Running uBlock and Pihole. If your Adblock isn't configured to ignore adblocker warnings you'll probably see it. I find I get them more on my phone than my PC

Succinctly it means "I'm going to get rid of you by restricting your ability to get near me, whether by your own will, or physical assault/death."

LOL that site wants me to disable my adblocker to viee it..

Here's an archived version without any harassment or demand to make your computer less secure

The biggest hole in your argument is that it isn't 1993 anymore, and the internet has a whole wealth of information on how to do shit, not to mention how hard it would be to have never touched a computer if you're any more than 5 years old.

People could take the 30 seconds to get the answer, but instead they'd prefer to just be stupid and allow big tech to slowly repeal rights to repair.

I've done corporate IT. I've talked to people who somehow use a computer every day but still haven't grasped basic 30+ year old concepts.

The reliance on IT to do the most basic shit is great for me from an employment standpoint, but we are equitr clearly being herded slowly toward the "Take that to your certifies Microsoft repair center for service' path. It'll only be a matter of time before Computers are as pathetic as the pocket computers we call smart phones.

Google and Apple have not just convinced people that they don't need full ownership of their phones, but that having that level of access is actually somehow a bad thing.

We're already seeing laptops with batteries sealed in, and not just Surface Pro tablet style ones, either.

We shouldn't be coddling and encouraging ignorance of everyday things. If you can do a jigsaw puzzle, you're overqualified to build a computer - you may need help picking the right parts, but assembly should be straight forward. If you work a job that requires computer usage, you should know at least the basics of the OS. If you worked in a shop where your job was to cut a pipe to length using a saw, would you really have that job for long if you had no idea how to use a saw, and refused to learn the basics of using the saw? A computer is a tool no less than a saw is.

Banks are the fucking worst for this. I assume it's because they're built on some 500 year old CICS mainframe.

I call bullshit. Loblaws steals a killing in profits pretty much every year - even through COVID. They don't need to raise shit - the tariffs are just a scapegoat for their greed.

Wouldn't they need to continue to collect taxes in order to fund maintenance and staff wages?

Lmao imagine paying a monthly fee for software that ruins the game you made... Wtf

Man, where to even start on this...

"Watering down" is the MS approach to design - take all the power user features, and make them less useful and less efficient to use (or just get rid of them altogether). It's a slow burn to "Take that to the nearest certified Microsoft Store so they can repair it for you".

The entire design is focused around making things HARDER to use. Less reliance on a terminal, dynamic menus whose contents are clusterfucked into little panels instead of proper menus. Hell, look at the Printers dialogue in Windows 7 and prior, then compare that to the trash they've thrown in Win 10 and 11. Everything is designed to look flashy, and be as impossibly inefficient to use. But it looks less intimidating, so stupid users love it!

Reading some email and punching some numbers into an excel sheet are about the equivalent of signing a lease or getting a flu shot.

Not sure where you're from, but when I get a flu shot, I sit in a chair and somebody who knows how to administer the shot gives it to me. I also don't get a flu shot for several hours a day several days a week. Same with leases, I may sign one every few years at most, and if it's for something serious then I would get a lawyer involved. That said, I am at least competent enough to sit in the chair and get the shot without asking "what's a chair? How do I sit? Where is my arm?" Likewise, I can read a lease and not have to ask "What is a lease? What is a signature? How do I sign this page?" I can't say the same about people in 2025 who say "What's the start button?" or have no idea that decades-old shortcuts like ctrl+c and ctrl+v are things.

Also, if you consider the amount of marketing and exposure to computers that people have had by now, yes, I would expect just about everybody to know what the fuck a Start button is. Shit, if you hold your mouse over it, I'm almost certain it even pops a tooltip that says "Start". Some of these people have worked at this same company for decades, and have no doubt touched generations of Windows software.

As for how to copy/paste on those older computers - I guess it depends on how you're accessing them as to whether or not you even can copy/paste. But at the same time, I wouldn't be nearly as frustrated if somebody wasn't quite sure how to navigate through something that isn't as commonplace as a Windows computer - you might as well say you're "not very competent with pencils and paper".

Well, lucky for them their fields aren't under constant attack by droves of idiots constantly being catered to. There is no watering down of those fields in the name of "user friendliness".

Also, they don't expect people to understand their field, but people don't interact and touch legal stuff or doctor stuff on a daily basis like people do with computers. If they did, then they would no doubt feel the same way about idiots who can't grasp the basics and refuse to learn the slightly more advanced shit.

It's 2025. There's no reason for anybody - but especially the older group - to not know what the start button is, or keyboard shortcuts for copy and paste, for example.

I actually get frustrated when I don't know how to do something and will spend the time to figure it out... So I may not be well versed in all those points, but I have at least some skill and knowledge in each section.

We don't all have the same 24 hours, but we should all have the same ability to at least refer to and/or seek out information to get us some understanding of what we're doing, and yet, here I am in 2025 working with people who are 30+ years old asking me "what's the Start button?"