Good comparison there. My point was only that some things need to be simple and self explainatory, even if it creates friction and reduces the power, because:

Good comparison there. My point was only that some things need to be simple and self explainatory, even if it creates friction and reduces the power, because: A) they are not used all that often so the friction does not matter B) the thing is public and must be usable by potentially everyone On the other hand some things that are meant to be used for hours at a time should make the same tradeoff between reducing the one-time mental burden vs reducing the friction in daily use by power users. A cash register that is operated 8 hours a day by one person for 5 days a week for years at a time can (and I argue should!) be designed differently than a check out register that is used by new unexperienced customers for example. If an action the cashier does 200 times a day takes five seconds longer it makes a difference of 17 minutes a day or 83 minutes a week. That is a workday wasted on nothing in a month. The same workday could have been spent to train the cashier on a faster cash register that has a tiny bit more powerful user interface. Five seconds are a tad bit much, but even if you take one second, that number would add up to day in five months of work. And that is the capitalist efficiency perspective — it also annoys cashiers if they are slow to do the one thing they have to do 200 times a day.