> I’m not disagreeing with you, but rather suggesting that the ceiling for how much the average user can/will leverage customization is surprisingly low.

The average person is also a crappy writer, bad musician and lousy carpenter. But a notepad and a pen don’t tell me how to use them. They don’t limit my creative capacity. Same story with a piano, or a hammer and chisel. I wish computers were more like that.

Your point stands. Most notebook users never use it to write a bestselling novel, or draw like Picasso. But the invitation to try is still in the medium somehow. Just waiting for the right hand.

I agree with the rest of your comment. As software engineers, we could build any software we want for ourselves. It’s telling that we choose to use tools like git and IntelliJ. Stuff that takes months or years to master. I think it’s weirdly perverted to imagine the best software for everyone else is maximally dumbed down. Thats not what users want.

Rather than aiming for “software that is easy to use” I think we should be aiming for “software that rewards you for learning”. At least, in creative work. I’m personally far more interested in making the software equivalent of piano than I am in making the software equivalent of a television set.