Should a computer require learning or just be an appliance

[kedawa]

I can't stand the dumbing down of personal computers, which is exactly why I want information appliances to succeed and replace them for the average consumer.
A decade from now, personal computers will once again just be for us geeks, and everyone else can have their 'curated computing' devices, and we'll all be happy.

[kedawa]

The problem is that making things easy for the average person usually translates to obfuscating and hiding things that are very useful to someone who is technically savvy.
That could be anything from hiding file extensions to locking the user out of admin level privileges.
There is no one size fits all approach that makes sense anymore.  The average user wants something that they can't mess up, which means those who want to tinker and customize have to circumvent the protections that are there to keep the average user out of trouble.
Personal computers as they exist today are perfect for what I want to do with them, but they have never been ideal for the average consumer.  Since the early nineties, people have been fooled by the computer industry into buying personal workstations that have far more complexity and versatility than they actually need, both in terms of hardware and software.