> We — the programmers, designers, product people — collectively decided that users don't deserve the right to code in everyday products. Users are too stupid. They'd break stuff. Coding is too complicated for ordinary people. Besides, we can just do the coding...so why does it matter?
I've always thought of it more as "I want to limit what someone can do, so that I can be sure I've prevented them from doing something malicious". A lot of effort in a lot of pieces of software is making sure that bad actors don't ruin it for everyone else.
Author has a point, but it's similar to the "linux makes a very, very good desktop" point.
If you want mass markets to bring down the costs to very low levels, everyone has to participate. Almost all people have to use Windows in order to have very low OS software costs. If we let people use Linux here, and FreeBSD there, and MacOS over here, the overall cost rises immensely.
I've always thought of it more as "I want to limit what someone can do, so that I can be sure I've prevented them from doing something malicious". A lot of effort in a lot of pieces of software is making sure that bad actors don't ruin it for everyone else.