Need to hide it behind a terminal with scary monospace letters.

Even that barely helps - try opening the web dev console in your browser on a popular social media site and there are huge warnings telling people not to paste commands in there they have been told to do to "hack Facebook and see nudes from your hot neighbor"

I hate to say it but at some point it is their device and they can install malware if they want to. I think it is good to put up some warnings and make particularly dangerous permissions particularly hard to give. But at some point it is my device and you need to get out of my way.

If them installing malware had zero impact on the rest of us, sure.

Meanwhile, in the real world, externalities exist.

Yes, but one of the major externalities in this context is security industry smothering every computing platform, turning it from a bicycle for the mind into a TV for the mind.

> the general population will simply hit "Ok" or "Allow" on any (security) prompt so they can get to their desired goal.

So let them? I keep hearing this argument but I have yet to hear a good explanation of why it's a problem or why I should care.

If a thief walks up to someone's door and asks to be let in, and the person opens the door and lets them in, is that a security flaw on the door's part? Should we make doors harder or even impossible to open by their owners to prevent them from letting a criminal in?

But that's not how activating ADB works at all, it's a fairly complicated process that takes many weird steps.

Cool, ok… you either learn from your mistakes or you don’t.

Developers aren’t responsible for the general population doing dumb shit, as long as they don’t trick them into it, and it doesn’t happen as a result of bugs in their software.

Imagine if the makers of stoves or kitchen knives believed that they should design out every possible way someone could burn or cut themselves…

“Do you want to let [application] access [the calendar|your photos|files created by other apps]?” seems totally reasonable; stopping users from running programs that do this altogether, not at all.

The biggest problem with it all is: that which OS developers do to “protect users” becomes what application developers use constrain users and prevent them accessing their data, in order to extract more money or control how people use their own devices.

My butterknife doesn’t have the ability to upgrade itself to a chainsaw over the internet. Software has this somewhat unique and autonomous ability; comparing it to static household objects when it comes to manufacturers’ legal obligations (or ethical oughts) doesn’t necessarily make sense.

Normally, I’d agree with you. But over the years I have been thinking that bad practices on internet connected devices ends up being everyone’s problem.