An admin password prompt is hardly a deterrence to people doing stupid things. A young physics PhD friend of mine fell victim to a tech support scam, happily installing whatever spyware “Apple Support” told her to install over phone. That was a few years ago. The average person is too easily social engineered into allowing anything.

Sure, I don't think either this[1] commenter or Ken Thompson were trying to say that the product category shouldn't exist. A computer is vastly overpowered for what the average user is capable of or interested in doing[2], which is why toy devices like iPads are so popular.

I interpreted both of their comments as claiming that the direction MacOS is taking is a poor fit for those who still get value from powerful, general-purpose computers (myself very much included! I occasionally have the misfortune of using Macs, but am much much happier on systems where I can dig as deep into its layers as I need to solve my problems or scratch my itches)

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=35219381

[2] Though I do think it's a minor tragedy that the increasing amount of guardrails has narrowed the opportunity for an inquisitive youngster to explore his computer's internals

At what point do we say "that's her own fault"? How do we evolve to be alert to threats if we just hide them away and take agency from individuals?

> The average person is too easily social engineered into allowing anything.

How many "average" users you know who use sudo? At some point, the software needs to acknowledge users who are saying "I know what I'm doing and the risks, just let me do it" i.e. sudo.

An admin check tells the OS that you are an admin, not that you know what the software does and that you are ok with CoolWallpapers logging all inputs.

It also tells the OS that I have root privilege and I should know what to do with that power, not babysit me.