Windows 11 is getting out of hand with its push for advertisments, frankly - remember the recent full-screen pop-up to persuade users to install Edge or other Microsoft services? Then another advertisment was placed in the Start menu, and now Microsoft has finally worn my temper thin - with a new Game Pass ad coming to the Settings app.
This will likely arrive in the July update for Windows 11, or at least it’s almost certain to do so. It was present in the latest preview update Microsoft just released for the OS (and quickly paused due to a bug, but that’s another story). It’s also worth noting that the ad has been present in earlier test versions of Windows 11.
Can y’all IT people please stop with the condescending “you don’t know how stupid people are about computers”, it seems like there is always one of you showing up in a comment thread to tell us that we can’t have the future literally all of us want including you all as well… because WE are too stupid and lazy about computers.
I helped a grown ass human who was my age at 40yo how to install a Firefox extension.
Were you as condescending to them in person as you are being in referencing them right now? Why is not knowing how to install a Firefox extension some indicator of foreclosure on the possibility of that person becoming computer literate along whatever metrics you define? There are plenty of smart people out there who can learn how to use a computer for very complex tasks who have just simply never learned about extensions for Firefox. This is a very feasible and normal reality.
Do you know how to change the oil on your car yourself? Do simple plumbing jobs? Could you run a classroom of middle schoolers and keep them all focused while keeping your eye on the shy sad kid in the back who tends to disappear if you don’t engage them? What about basic healthcare changes or cooking? What about outdoor work or basic small engine maintenance? Do you even know shit about the most basic species of trees in your backyard? Do you know the species of songbirds you often hear outside your window? Do you even pay attention to that? Do you know how to drive a dirt bike extremely fast on a rough dirt road? Do you know how to adjust for the violent explosive power of turbo lag in a car with a turbocharger so that torque oversteer doesn’t launch you off the road? Do you know how to sew and repair basic garments? To weave? Can you even fish? Like could you literally even just catch a fish to save your life right now if I handed you a fishing rod unassembled with no instructions?
My point is, don’t go looking for confirmation of how stupid or lazy people are or how limited their capacity is to evolve and grow by casting the shapes of their ignorance onto the floor and trying to read some magic language from that.
Maybe they don’t know because they are hopelesssly stupid, but maybe not? If they are intelligent and they don’t know computers then those are the perfect people to teach linux. Then it is their first language instead of windows, many linux distro are perfectly fine for this at this point.
See here is the bottom line, legions of IT people show up online always arguing they think they know that the average person is too dumb, lazy and uninterested in computers for Linux adoption to seriously take off in the personal computer market and challenge Microsoft, but y’all don’t know shit about humans. You are experts in computers who think that makes you experts in human potential.
Go take some theater classes (or get an degree in education) and get educated before you start drawing conclusions about people when you really haven’t spent time closely studying how people engage with their potential and what situations facilitate that in basic human interaction and framing of conversations (both literal and abstract).
I’m sorry if I snapped at you but I think it is existentially important to recognize here that we don’t know what people are capable of, you can’t know the essential capacity of people to change, don’t try to predict it. Focus on creating the material opportunity for change and the rest may follow depending on what people desire, no matter to us, we desire to create that positive opportunity for change because it is the right thing to do, not because we like the future growth charts of the things we believe are important and vital.
I agree with the sentiment of your post, but I think the examples are a bit too far fetched:
I’d wager most people use a computer/phone on a daily basis, which is why having a basic understanding of it seems like knowledge we should all have.
Inversely, most people don’t need even have a turbo in their car and many don’t even have a car, so any knowledge relating to that is probably useless for them.
That being said, even if someone is less knowledgeable in a field, respect should always be the baseline, as you illustrate, they’re probably skilled in something else!
I’m saying that as an IT person that’s aware that I’m making money mostly because people don’t bother to learn all this, so in the end I don’t mind that much.
I think you’re missing the point here. It’s more that people couldn’t even be bothered to search up how to do something (that takes seconds) that they want to do first, and instead just rely on someone they think is an expert without putting in any effort at all.
Your examples don’t really make sense either as a lot of these are paid professions for larger tasks that most people simply don’t want to do. There’s a huge difference in searching online “how to install a Firefox extension” vs “how to do an weave”, etc.
End of the day, the average person doesn’t care and if they truly did they’d have the initiative to have just researched it and done it on their own.
Bringing it back to the whole thing about Linux, can you imagine how frustrating it would be to have to help debug a user’s Linux installation when they already need help with installing a browser add on? I work with tech and Linux on a daily basis and I already find it frustrating doing it for myself (fuck Nvidia drivers). No way am I gonna recommend it to someone else.
Exactly. Look at Reddit/Lemmy where people ask questions instead of searching, when they could’ve gotten their answer faster by searching using their question as a query instead of posting it (i.e. LMGTFY). People are lazy in very weird ways, some are happier to call tech support than read an article, even if that call takes more than 2x as long as the search.
Bringing it back to the whole thing about Linux, can you imagine how frustrating it would be to have to help debug a user’s Linux installation when they already need help with installing a browser add on? I work with tech and Linux on a daily basis and I already find it frustrating doing it for myself (fuck Nvidia drivers). No way am I gonna recommend it to someone else.
Are you honestly going to still claim at this late date of 2024 that a decent popular linux distro is actually going to be MORE of a headache than Windows?
…?
Have you tried Windows recently?
I’m not sure why that is so hard to believe. I use Ubuntu and Windows at work daily and Windows at home. I know the challenges of both and Windows at worst just annoys me with them forcing the new Outlook app on me. Everything else just works. Plays games amazingly, Visual Studio is uncontested, syncs nicely with my Android phone and I have no driver issues whatsoever. Don’t have to go diving into the command line to change settings either.
The only time Linux works perfectly for me is on my Steam Deck and that’s entirely because Valve has handled all the driver issues for us on that hardware.
