Sure. My point is that if everyone understood a bit more about the tools they use, they'd have fewer problems, need to spend less money, and get more out of them, and that goes for pretty much everything.

If you know how to do basic car maintenance, you could swap a few parts now and them and save the trips to the mechanic for larger problems. It's not hard and the tools for most jobs are minimal. If people were capable of that, they'd prioritize things like Right to Repair, which benefits everyone and can help reduce waste (i.e. prevent harm to the planet).

Likewise for laptops and phones. You shouldn't need to replace the whole thing just because the screen got cracked or the storage is going bad. If the average person was capable of basic repairs, repair would be a much more common thing. It wasn't that long ago that places carried computer parts (not just drives and RAM, but board level components like caps and connectors). I get that things are more complicated these days, but if people understood how their devices worked a bit better, they'd demand that tl be available at shops and repairs would be cheap.

The same goes for software. If someone knows how the system is oit together (kernel, userland, apps, etc) at a high level, they can do a much better job diagnosing problems and determine if an issue is likely hardware or software, and be able to follow guides online to diagnose further.

I'm not saying everyone should be an expert on everything, I'm saying I wish people knew a bit more than "press this button to see funny videos." Teach it in schools to demystify things a bit, so people feel confident in digging in and learning more.

There was a good middle ground, and we passed it like 20 years ago