We had mice for a brief instant of computer history, then came the phones and tablets and e-readers and watches and TVs and voice interfaces and who knows what'

We had mice for a brief instant of computer history, then came the phones and tablets and e-readers and watches and TVs and voice interfaces and who knows what's next? I worked on a web-based replacement for medical record software, and a primary complaint from users was that they wanted to be able to use the keyboard. These weren't Unix nerds or whatever, they were normal people who wanted to get stuff done effectively and ergonomically. Nobody knows you can do keyboard navigation on Google, and anyhow that's just one website with a special custom JavaScript. Why keyboard navigation on the web is so horrible and embarrassing is an interesting question with lots of strands to investigate. Why would CPUs be there to be wasted? Power efficiency is even an ethical imperative these days. If there are more efficient ways to do the basic tasks of computing and networking, that also allows CPUs to do more interesting and valuable things. It's not about Emacs, that's just my personal idiosyncratic preference. Other people have other preferences, which is exactly the point. Note that Emacs works very well with many network standards, like email, Usenet, IRC, RSS, even BitTorrent. These are protocols that have enough semantic structure, openness, and simplicity to allow access with different clients that present the information in whatever way is optimal for the user. As for most people not wanting to use terminals, how do you know? Maybe they just don't like the existing terminal interfaces. Unix commands are notoriously cryptic and shells don't help much. But if you showed a normal person a nice-looking shell where you could type "netflix breaking bad s3" and get a nice presentation back, would they really be depressed?