Exactly. With Linux, the user has to actually click on the update icon, click a button to start the updates, then type in their password.

For most users, that's just *way* too hard to do, so it never gets done.

With Windows, it'll force updates on you at some point, so Grandma will be updated whether she wants to or not, even if she's in the middle of something. Users like that *need* this.

And these days MS and Apple are pretty good at making the process pretty transparent. I don't remember ever updating my Apple Watch, it's just up to date. Presumably updated over night, Windows is mostly the same.

Not on Ubuntu, it prompts you when updates are available.

Right, but still you have to click somewhere and type in a password IIRC.

That's *way* too hard for many users. If it isn't done completely invisibly in the background, or completely forced on the user, then it just won't get done.

We lost a lot of competence along the years. Are people trying to get back into Womb state? I mean it's not just computers but everything. On the other hand we have highly competent people who are unwilling to put in "the work" if someone does a half assed job for them. Even if they know they can do better with little more effort.

And then there are these ultra dedicated people who do everything to be independent from others to the point of social isolation.

What is happening?!

I think you raise some good points, as I've noticed that it seems like average people, decades ago, used to be a lot more capable of handling various things that today it seems like they're not. I think personally it was because, back then, they were basically forced into it, or just didn't have so many things distracting them.

Still, when Grandma won't update her computer because clicking a few buttons and typing a password is too much work, we can't point to the past here: she wasn't updating computers in her younger years either, and usually wasn't using a computer at all. Even middle-aged people now are using computers and smartphones, when in their younger years they didn't have those things.

No ordinary people are competent enough, even for Linux these days. The tech people tend to over-exaggerate their belief that average people can't think beyond hitting a button.