Even the systems that should most "just work" still leak abstractions like sieves.
It's true that the average person doesn't want to spend time tinkering with tech and take the risk of breaking things. But that's not the same thing as being happy with how things work, and it's not the same thing as using tech as productively as possible.
When I write software or talk to people about how they use software, they always want it to work somewhat differently. They do want customisation for entirely sensible and very specific reasons. They just don't want to do it themselves. That's why consulting and support is a huge global industry.
The problem with "just works" is that it only has meaning where the requirements are specified in great detail with very little variability. That's always trivially the case for single purpose household appliances. It's also the case for things like making phone calls or for device drivers. No one wants to "customise" a device driver to stop it from draining the battery.
But computers are not single purpose devices. They are used for a million different things in a million different situations. "Just works" is largely undefined outside of core OS functionality. And that's why the appliance metaphor just doesn't work.
If productivity of end-users was the goal then we wouldn't see random changes to interfaces that people had learnt, for no other reason than some graphic designer thinks it doesn't look "fresh".
The truth is for most of what most people do, computing was solved around 2010-ish and all anyone wants now is for things to be more reliable, faster and cheaper. But that's much harder work for companies that a new flat interface style, or some animated emojis.
Make the number go up. All hail the number.
After tens of millions of people are harmed by this, laws will be passed, or knowledge will be passed down never to do this again.
They were one of the first to do that, and have been doing for more than a decade, while profits only increase.
Then Google, Apple and Amazon.
Windows, on the other hand is worse of both worlds - Nothing works from the start, and it's not easily configurable. (Before you bring your pitch-forks I use Windows on daily basis)
I know it's still a fashionable meme on HN to hate Windows and Microsoft for telemetry and Candy Crush, but saying nothing works is a bit of an exaggeration at this point.
Using both Windows 10 and Linux at home and work I can say that while linux is the de facto OS for the server/cloud/embedded system, Windows 10 is the rock solid go-to for the laptop/gaming station, especially on laptops with nvidia cards where very few linux distros and desktop environments would not shit the bed on, especially with thunderbolt docks, with multiple displays and various scaling. Authentication via fingerprint readers or IR-cameras on Linux? Good luck with that.
Granted, that's not linux's fault that driver support from hardware vendors is absolute dog shit, but as a user/employee/consumer I'm gonna use whatever just-works™ to get my work/entertainment needs fulfilled with minimal friction, and at this point, outside the Apple ecosystem, Windows 10 has the best driver support by hardware vendors by a long shot with linux sadly still relying on reverse engineered drivers by the community or binary blobs which are ignored by the FLOSS community, which turns linux into this dumpster fire on the more "fancy" laptops that use anything more than an intel chip with integrated graphics that are nothing more than ssh terminals.
It's just clicking the snip button in the action center by the clock or pressing "WinKey + Shift + S" then draw the rectangle for the area you want captured. How much simpler is screenshotting on the Mac?
You not liking some of the default apps that come with the OS(which is understandable) does not make an OS bad.
I also hate some of the apps that come with most linux distros but that doesn't make linux terrible.
Windows isn't easily configurable? By what metric? There's a dozen ways to enter the same settings and most of the time you can just search for what it is about the operating system you want to change - in the operating system itself, with the OS's own search bar.
And "nothing works"? What the fuck are you even doing on Windows 10, where you and apparently only you, manage to break all functionality after the initial install?
I can't even remember the last time I've had a problem with Windows 10... a blue screen, hell, even an application crash.
What's the point of having any operating system of you can't install applications on it that work for you.
Most people never change anything in their system, and know little more than exactly what they need to do the specific tasks they want to do (writing documents, photo storage, e.t.c) An appliance like system where "it just works" and you never need to understand any of the structure or fiddle with the computer in any way is probably exactly what a lot of people want.