Yes. The web didn’t get “dumbed down”; it got more diverse. This is a very good thing. The issue is that technologists insist on making a clear distinction bet

Yes. The web didn’t get “dumbed down”; it got more diverse. This is a very good thing. The issue is that technologists insist on making a clear distinction between the “user” and the “developer”. If you hide the number of web requests away in an obscure, borderline illegible, “developer tools” pane, is it a surprise that the average user has no idea about what is going on in their browser? No one is interested about building a browser, or even an operating system for that matter, that focuses on making things understandable, learnable. That is part of the reason why we end up in situations like the ones described in the article. Regarding differences in intelligence, that is not a particularly relevant point here. People have differences (plural) in intelligences (plural). Even one person has diffferences in intelligences throughout their life at many different scales - I was much better at physics back in college than I am now because I practiced it more, and yet I wouldn’t say I was more intelligent 10 years ago than I am now even though I could solve physics problems faster. There are even pretty big fluctuations in my intelligence in a single day based on how tired/frustrated I am, if I have concerns at the back of my mind, etc. All of these statements aren’t really relevant here, because we have systems that deliberately obfuscate how they work, which is a much bigger problem.