Well... Hacker's Keyboard do make Termux usable, other keyboard completely fail, so I like it, I prize it but... It's like to say "jump from a mountain naked is really bad, jump with two open umbrellas, dressed with some kind of life-support inflated jacket and trying to fall in a lake instead on rocks is better"...

When you say "most people still use PCs" like PCs was an obsolete thing makes me shiver. For me desktops are the center of our digital life and mobile crap are only an experiment to make anybody slave of few services that's somehow succeed but it's of course doomed to fails like "netbooks" in the past.

As much as I agree with your sentiment that desktop computers are infinitely more useful than mobile devices, the reason that smartphones and tablets have succeeded is because they won over the idiot market (a.k.a. computer novices). There are an awful lot more computer novices/idiots out there than there are people who can appreciate the power of a desktop computer, so market forces make mobile devices dominate. Developers write applications for the users, and since the users are now on mobile devices, we get into a cycle of power where both the users and the applications are on one platform.

Unlike netbooks, which were underpowered laptops released ahead of their time, mobile devices have already hit their critical mass of users. Kids grow up with phones and tablets instead of computers, on average, which makes real computers a much scarier and less interesting proposition.

No doubt, but consider a thing: the reason that now nearly anyone have a car does not justify the fact that we still have need for certain kind of cars for "skilled" drivers and work. So while I understand that the masses get a smartdevice I reject the actual trend of abandon desktop, simply because we can't do that without catastrophic consequences.

On education: personally I was taught a bit of unix at first even if my first computer came late (around 13/14 years old) and that's give me in very few time a set of skills I do not see even in many colleagues after years of professional work. Myself I learnt many thing in a very long time simply because I discover them casually and nobody help/taught me anything or nearly anything on them. Long story short: if we have proper school development of certain skills or at least a certain forma mentis/paradigma start to be easy and quick and pay off enormously during the entire rest of the life.

Of course I do not expect a phantasmagorical society formed entirely by PhDs and MDs but I certainly do expect a far different society with benefit for all of its components. The lack of competence and skill we observe these days, coupled with unemployment rates depict a clear scenario about that.

We have less and less competent people, we actually encourage people to be incompetent (like "hey coding at schools to forms legions of code monkeys able perhaps to write a hello world) saying the contrary, we obstacle due to the architecture of the schools, society, companies etc skilled people to express, cultivate and grow their potential and as a results we do not know how to evolve anymore.

We produce more and more crap, we have many companies more and more dependent on few, typically aging "consultants" the few that still know how to work etc.

That's can't last in the medium/long term and recovery is super-difficult and super-long.

You make a really strong point about how our culture emphasizes the wrong values and how many of us are dumbed down by low expectations of competency. I'm interested in seeing what the future will look like when the current smartphone-addicted generation enters the workforce, but I also know a number of thirteen-year-olds who use Linux (some more seriously than others).

Maybe the only thing we can be grateful about is that it takes less to be on top(+)?

+: Of course, I know I'm certainly not on top, especially looking at some of the really impressive Show HNs that I see quite often, but compared to the people who I work with and the people around me in real life it doesn't take as much as you would think to be the best among them.

I think you hit the mush. As you I see few talented young people, that thanks to today's web and computing acquire knowledge at a really high rate and are really willing and hungry to learn. But they are fewer and fewer. Also they tend to be skilled in a thing but totally unable to being "generically skilled", I mean: you are a damn smart guys, you discovered in substantial autonomy, without help or friendly environment around GNU/Linux and in few years you are proficient enough to surpass many "professional technician" and you can't even tie your shoes?! I know that we can't be omniscient, we have preference, we focus on something etc, that's ok. But I do not talk about being skilled in anything, only being able to be "smart" in your entire daily life...

I fear this future because while takes less to be on top we do not live to race, with live to live. We are not autonomous, we need society, other expertise and work and that's pose a super-big problem even egoistically for us. Not even counting for our society at a whole and for future generations...

I agree with you. I don't think PCs are obsolete. It just takes more time for the rest of the world to figure out that the much-touted death of the PC isn't happening.