Average users aren't necessarily the people I want to interact with on a daily basis. It's like an advanced version of a captcha.

Maybe I'll make a technology and discussions site that is purposefully difficult to connect to. Maybe I won't use a standard protocol and you'll have to use netcat & gpg to read / upload posts or something absurd like that.

The "old internet" was inaccessible unless you were an expert, true. The experts could have seen this as a chance to make everyone into an expert and teach the values that were important to them in the process. If all the talk about the internet as a democratising force and a tool for freedom of expression is taken seriously, this would have been the way forward.

Instead, experts chose to be elitist and decided to use the information asymmetry to offset themselves from "the masses" and exploit it for monetary gain. The result is that we now have a wealth of powerful, free but arcane and hard to use tools for devs and a locked-down, commercialised and psychologically manipulative web for the rest. What kind of future is that?

I have an aversion of being called elitist. It's more like resignation, cynicism. Like thinking 'Eat all the shit that you want. Just don't shit on me'

However, what I absolutely believe is elitist is to intentionally design a confusing UX or value it as a "feature" because it will prevent certain groups of people from using the software. That was what the GP advocated for.

I see it with cars too. I have friends that love owning fast luxury coupes, and yet don't know how to change their own oil, and can't drive a stick shift. Some of those are guys who build their own PCs, but when it comes to anything mechanical? Nope. Don't even want to learn, and that surprises me.

You can lead horses to water but you can't make them drink, I guess.

So too with software and networks. The internet would never have gotten so big and useful if we demanded every user understand all its subsystems.

They just shouldn't be surprised when organizations that build something that tries to appeal to a mass audience become much, much, to appeal to a mass audience become much, much more relevant to the masses than the niches will ever be.

I remember when MS-DOS came with large printed handbooks. They were good. Maybe casual users should have read about 20% of that, for learning how to organize and separate programs and data, and doing backups accordingly.

Almost none did. And then cried because of some mishap.

Shrug.

Also, what leaks and breaches are you referring to? I've never heard anyone make the claim that the big sites are sources of more leaks and breaches than smaller sites. If anything, smaller sites have fewer resources to protect against attacks; if they are less often breached, it's likely because they're smaller, less interesting targets.

In general, exceptions happen and apply as alwasys.