@blakeyrat said:
And let me guess, you think the creaky old 1970s Unix CLI bullshit equates to "more powerful".
Even if you believed a CLI interface was "more powerful" than a GUI, you have to admit that 20-year-old CLI with tons of warts and misfeatures isn't ideal. (Which isn't to say, that 20-year-old GUIs don't have warts and misfeatures. Which I'm sure some idiot was just about to hit "Reply" and point out.)
I'm waiting with bated breath to see your evidence that simplified computer interfaces makes people "dumber".
I don't think CLI's are more powerful. They are more efficient for specific types of work (which is a form of power). As far as usability, Auto-complete was a godsend, and if there is somehow an intellisense feature in the future, Discoverability will be covered, too.
Simplified UIs don't exactly make people "dumber", but they prevent people from getting "smarter". There's plenty of research that says that beginners don't stay beginners for very long, and at the same time, there are only a few who feel limited by a moderate level of complexity. To go back to my original post, I feel like we almost had a chance to bring people into this middle-level of competency, but tech makers catered to the lowest-level consumer and stifled the progress.
Touch interfaces coupled with modern UX design have very low discoverability. The modern "flat" design removed a lot of affordability by identifying a button as a raised object. This required a mouse hovering action to discover if the item was clickable. With touch, the hovering concept is removed. Don't even get me started on the "discoverability" of edge swiping. So if anything, simplified UIs are worse now because they require an even more limited function set.
(I'm a little bummed I've hijacked the discussion to be about usability instead of the original concept of having Internet "portals", like the AOL of old.)