I have a friend from HS who had no interest in computers beyond using them as appliances until he asked me how to extend the life of a shitty laptop that he owned and I suggested that he install Linux on it.

This was about 20s ago now and between now and then he's become a distrohopping person who is quite knowledgeable in hardware with no impetus from me beyond the initial push.

I look at what rural farmers can do when push comes to shove in all kinds of domains and I wonder why not with the general public and computers.

If we had a Cuban embargo type scenario where westerners couldn't get modern hardware and the operating systems that run on it they'd figure out how to.make.die with the cheapest and most reliable software/hardware combo.

People don't grow to learn new skills because they aren't pressed to by circumstance not because they can't.