Agreed, Big Tech's quest for UX and frictionless Interfaces has lead to a generation of people who vastly overestimate their tech savviness and are basically only great at navigating walled gardens made specifically to be easy to use.

It's not really their fault though: in addition to frontends becoming ever easier to use, backends are also becoming increasingly complex. 20 years ago you could learn a bit of HTML and CSS and throw a decent website together, but nowadays you need to master tons of other skills (graphical design, scripting, etc.) to make even so much as a web page that won't scare people away immediately. It's hard to get interested in this stuff when the barrier of entry is getting higher and higher, while tons of GAFAM-made alternative are already available for "free"

[–] Adanisi@lemmy.zip 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Seriously. It's infuriating. Everything is so damn dumbed down now it's ridiculous! People are incapable of doing so much as reading error messages and doing basic troubleshooting, sometimes I wonder where society went wrong. They're completely helpless with the technology that makes up more and more of our lives, and I hate to see it.

[–] deur@feddit.nl 3 points 9 months ago

20 years ago you could learn a bit of HTML and CSS and throw a decent website together, but nowadays you need to master tons of other skills (graphical design, scripting, etc.) to make even so much as a web page that won’t scare people away immediately

Looking at it this way is what stops people from trying though :(

[–] ech@lemm.ee 1 points 9 months ago

It’s not really their fault though

Definitely not, and to clarify, I am laying any blame there is to be doled out at the feet of companies.

I do wonder if it's reversible at this point, though. I don't see any company choosing to reverse course, at least not in a way that would cause a large-scale shift. Incapable users are the best they could hope for - uninterested in seeking out anything other than what they are handed and, if they ever did decide to look around, unable to adapt to "harsher" alternatives. Legislation certainly isn't going to be expected. No government is going to mandate citizens have a "worse" experience. Perhaps a purposeful cultural shift, but that would take a lot of coordination of people that likely don't see the issue or simply don't care. I feel like we're past the watershed here, as frustrating and concerning as that is.