Rachel RamosFeb 24
aaron

The tech industry spent twenty years turning users into consumers, instruments into appliances, and technical literacy into a niche hobby for weirdos. They succeeded.

New post: The Slow Death of the Power User
https://fireborn.mataroa.blog/blog/the-slow-death-of-the-power-user/

#technology #opensource #linux #poweruser #techliteracy #foss

The Slow Death of the Power User — fireborn

Feb 24 at 10:30amWeb
Show threadJonathanFeb 24
@fireborn I couldn't agree more. Would boost 5 times if I could.
Show threadTimelimeFeb 24

@fireborn I agree in general, but I think you're setting the tech bar too high.

"...connect to a remote server via SSH... explain what DNS is at a conceptual level... tell you the difference between their router’s public IP and the local IP of their laptop... Twenty years ago these were things you learned in the first week of any serious engagement with computers."

Those were never things most people learned. They clicked the AOL button. Now they use iOS.

Show threadaaronFeb 24
@TimeLime That's a fair assessment. I set the bar based on what I learned to do and the concepts I learned to understand. I think, though, for illistrating what a power user used to be and what it is now it works, but I could have been more specific about that
Show threadTimelimeFeb 24
@fireborn I really mean that as a positive thing. The average people are still average - no loss there. They were never going to be power users. Don't let them get you down.
Show threadaaronFeb 24
@TimeLime Ah I understand now. I'm not down about it per say, it's just been interesting training people on the use of technology and seeing the corrilation between generation of person and technical literacy, so I did a bigger dive on it with further research and personal experience.
Show threadKara GoldfinchFeb 24
@TimeLime @fireborn I'm in my 40s and only used SSH for the first time last year.
Show threadsnowyfoxFeb 24
.
Show threadThe Incredible LaserFeb 24

@fireborn while I'm inclined to agree with these points, I do believe that the absolute number of people who do understand and tinker on fact has gone up slightly over the years; infrastructure, code, and documentation have vastly improved. Looking back 25 years, setting up Linux was hard. Today, much less so because a lot of people have spent a lot of time investing into those.

Big tech has added to the group of "incompetent technology users", but not cannibalized from the power users IMHO

Show threadjablkoziemneFeb 24

@fireborn
I have not yet finished reading, but
">>Coding<< in the form of block-based visual programming that produces no transferable understanding of how software actually works."

The only thing that comes to my mind here are scratch like colourful blocks. And from what i precieve they are more about learning algorithms.
And Im not too sure what you mean by how software works. I could guess that its someting about how machine executes instructions, but then all programing languages abstract that away, or how something about integration of many different software pieces, but even that could be probably somehow reproduced.

Anyway, your post more sparked my interest in number of people that are computer literate over period of time compared to number of computer users, or level/kind of said literacy.

Show threadMarek MackoFeb 24
@fireborn Sad but true.
On the other hand, as I grow older, convenience becomes more and more important to me. I don't want to root phones, install custom ROMs, or tweak everything to death all day long like I did 10 years ago. Now, I just want things to work reliably enough so that I don't have to fix stuff for me, my less tech-savvy friends and relatives after work.
Show threadCleversonFeb 24
@jcsteh @fireborn Very good essay; congrats!
Show threadLightFeb 24
@fireborn
I would care about power users more if they were less elitist and rude.
Show threadaaronFeb 25
@light Ironically there would be less elitism and rudeness if there were more power users.
Show threadLightFeb 25
@fireborn
If the world was mostly power users then maybe, yeah.
Show threadLightFeb 25
@fireborn And btw, I probably don't mean you or anyone on this side of fedi.
I mean people who explicitly say that if someone doesn't know what they know, they are inferior.
The type I'm thinking of uses words like "tech plebs", "normies", "normalcattle", variations involving the n-word, "skill issue", etc.
Show threadErin, OSHA DenialistFeb 25
@fireborn difference between my public and local IP? Well the public one starts with 2a03:c23:16f1:: and the later with fd32:b00b::!
Show threadLEdoianFeb 25

@1millibyte @fireborn difference between a public and local IP? That is just firewall and routing rules, right? *shows you a server 250 km away to which I'm consistently connecting using ULAs*

OK, you got me, link-local addresses are maaaybe not public (and site-local, if you accidentally remember). Still don't understand what you don't like about my fe80::449f:c3ff:fea8:a7b4 :-)

Show threadErin, OSHA DenialistFeb 25
@ledoian @fireborn ye local to what. I also access my ULAs from distance, but if the site is not physically local but in terms of overlay network hmm
Show threadKurtMar 4
@fireborn wow