Get off my lawn.
You know ebay has them if you wanted to see them before, they're not museum pieces yet. Also, they do still have their uses.
Kids these days ...
I totally get your point, but to be honest they're not completely wrong about that most of the time: Even if you're usually working in an entirely different area, you probably still have more general knowledge on computing than most people. This will often be enough for everday problems. I like the "You work with computers, lease fix mine" requests as little as you do, but in reality we are able to help most of the time.
I genuinely feel that the author frustration comes from the fact that people assume instead of "RTFM".
Each device comes with manual, whether paper or CD. Its just that average user does not read it. Your manual will tell you there is hardware on/of switch of wireless on the side of your laptop. Had she read that, she wouldn't have come and ask. ITs irrelevant how few seconds it will take him to "fix it"; get that same question hundred times a day and you will be frustrated. Many times non-tech users assumption "its broken" comes from basic lack of knowledge, which device manual will explain. "my laptop doesnt work! see i try to turn it on, nothing!". Manual, page 2: "insert battery and plug your computer to power plug to charge it". - "did you do that?" -"Well, no...".
The analogy with the car is a good one. When you purchase a vehicle it comes with couple hundreds of pages of manual. Imagine impression on mechanic's face, or his opinion about average driver if people would be coming to his shop all the time saying "man, my car is broken!", when the "change oil" light is on. OP didnt want her to deassemble her laptop and replace network card on it. He just want he to RTFM.
Average computer user nowadays lost patient and don't want to learn or find out anything out of ordinary. And that's why, I think, OP is rightfully so frustrated.
I find this to be a profound dichotomy. It gets even more profound when someone makes a statement, then said statement is misunderstood by some 'techno-geeks' due to poor natural language skills. A load of 'geeks' reply to this statement taken out of context, explaining the poster's apparent ignorance of technology.
The best reply to this: 'LSFE'
I got this in spades at my last job.
We were a web app startup, and the youngest people in a 13 story building. Everyone in the building knew we did something with computers, so they would never hesitate in bringing us their ancient machines and ask us to fix it, ask us to fix their network, in one case, ask us to do their daughter's final project for her intro to C++ class.
People really do just assume that everything to do with computers is directly related, and that they can ask anyone to fix it for free because "it'll only take a second".
I definitely got the feeling that the author had a bit of a chip on their shoulder, but I got through it and loved this article, because I have that same chip on my shoulder.
edit: One cool thing about those old people asking us to fix their shit, was that I got to see an authentic modem from 1999. They wouldn't upgrade because they didn't want to have to change their email addresses.