> Do not underestimate the power of making things easier for your users. I found this comment surprising. I believed this was one of those basic facts of life

> Do not underestimate the power of making things easier for your users. I found this comment surprising. I believed this was one of those basic facts of life for over two or three decades now. I mean, look at the history of Linux distros. All of the dominant Linux distros of the time had a single trait: they made things easier for users. Mandrake Linux was the single most user-friendly Linux of its day, because installing was trivial and required little to no config to get up and running. Knoppix became hugely popular because users could just burn a CD and have a fully functional Linux distro up and running without installing anything. Ubuntu became hugely popular because it picked up Debian's solid infrastructure and gave it a user-friendly makeover. In fact, is there any relevant Linux distro around whose killer feature was not making things easier for its target audience? In the past there was a vocal minority of Linux users who advocated in favour of high barriers to entry and all-around user-unfriendliness, but let's not be mistaken: what they actually advocated for was ladder-pulling and gatekeeping.