Firstly the internet is a lot older than 25 years (perhaps you mean web?) and secondly if the last 25 years has taught us anything it's that allowing users to d

Firstly the internet is a lot older than 25 years (perhaps you mean web?) and secondly if the last 25 years has taught us anything it's that allowing users to download and install whatever they want usually leads to problems. I mean I do get your point and even sympathise with it, to a point. But if someone needs SSH access and I don't trust them enough to put them in the sudoers file, then I'm not going to trust them enough to even choose what software to install and run from their own local user area. I've been burnt before from intelligent people doing stupid things because they thought they knew what they were doing. So if you're not a sysadmin and you're logging into a shared host, then you don't get install rights. I don't think that's an unreasonable stance to take.