You two are talking about different groups of people. crontab/Linux/Win: definitely needs learning smartphone: a little bit easier to use, open an app and everything is set visual assistant: out of box for being ready to use.

I taught one of my family members about using PC and Android, and found that almost everything needs to be explained. For example: - What's Google/Microsoft for? (Yes, even the giants in tech may never be heard for some people and it's common) - Browser? And there are many of them? (Not everyone has a computer and Internet access) - URL? What is that? I cannot even spell it! (This is more complicated and requires people to remember the addresses of tens of commonly used websites, btw, what's a bookmark!?) - register? with what? bank account or passport? (if someone doesn't have a email account, it's likely that they have no idea about the process of register, activation.) - App market? wait a second, what's an app? (not to mention built-in ones and those from 3rd parties)

The thing is Alexa, google home and many others provide a unified, easy to use substitute(well, I have to admit these devices are pretty dumb these days. So they are not 100 percent alternatives). The only requirement is being able to speak in a clear way, which is true for almost everyone.

PS: I don't have any of these devices. As a hard-core programmer, my choice is, without any doubt, *nix, shell, etc. GUI sucks ;-)