Yeah, I had a broadly similar reaction. Some of the things the author points out seem like genuine attempts to make software less user hostile by adopting solut

Yeah, I had a broadly similar reaction. Some of the things the author points out seem like genuine attempts to make software less user hostile by adopting solutions that "just work" across all platforms even if the users have no technical knowledge. I think a lot of engineers think of user friendly as "I can configure it any way I want" whereas for the vast majority of people user-friendly means "just do what I think it should do and don't ask me any questions I don't understand".