We're conflating two different things, which is the user's attitude toward the author, vs. the user's attitude towards learning the tech itself.
Given that the author showed sarcasm and hostility towards anyone perceived to be less technically literate from the very start, I wouldn't be surprised at the user's reaction, although I agree she should show some level of appreciation for what is essentially unpaid IT work.
> extremely basic thing to be confused about
No, the confusion is that PowerPoint even allows links and references, rather than directly embedding the content. You're expecting the user to be familiar with PowerPoint's feature set, and in my experience the linking/referencing feature is used rarely.
It doesn't help that the software purposefully hides the fact that it's a reference in order to make the experience more seamless.
> "Given that the author showed sarcasm and hostility towards anyone perceived to be less technically literate from the very start,"
The author mentions that his usual tactic is sarcasm, but that during this encounter he was polite.
> "You're expecting the user to be familiar with PowerPoint's feature set, and in my experience the linking/referencing feature is used rarely."
The user has just been told that PowerPoint was trying to stream the video. At this point, she no longer needs specific prior knowledge that PowerPoint has a linking/referencing feature. She has been presented with enough information to infer that the feature exists, if she has enough technical knowledge to recognize the general concept of a link. But instead of rethinking her situation, she patronizingly rejects the author's explanation—the first occasion in the encounter where she engaged in any discussion of the technical details.
Again, we have only the author's account for the interaction, and he sounds like he's got a big chip on his shoulder. I wouldn't be surprised if his attitude his coloring his interpretation.
Even if this particular user was being willfully ignorant, it's not been my experience with many, many other tech 'illiterate' people, who I've found by and large ask good questions and listen to explanations. I think computer-literate people really forget how much background knowledge they've absorbed over the years and how it helps them learn more.
Existing knowledge helps acquire more knowledge, and the effect compounds over time.
For example, a lot of posts here seem to be saying 'just Google it', but even knowing what terms to Google for is confusing for someone who doesn't have a knowledge base, because they don't even know what search terms to Google for, and which sources to trust.
For example, here's the first link you hit if you search 'remove viruses from computer':
Among other things, it recommends installing third-party AVX and random 'malware scanners'. Given how poor antivirus software is, following this advice will often slow down the computer and causes other problems down the line.
For someone who really doesn't know what they're doing, and knows that they don't know, another barrier to trying to learn is simple risk aversion. I'm hesitant to work on my own car because I know that I'm ignorant, to the point that I don't have a clear idea of what the failure modes are and the cost to me to fix them if I screw up.
Similarly, if a computer user really has no clue what they're doing and they know that they're ignorant, they might perceive the process of experimenting and learning as potentially very costly -- maybe they can lose all their files, or bork their computer for a week, etc.
There's also a second-order effect here -- some people are just not that quick at picking up new things, and they know that they're bad at it. I bet most software engineers are in the top 5% of the population in being able to teach themselves new things and learning them quickly. Unwillingness to learn a new task or fact can be rational if you have strong reasons to suspect that the cost of learning more is high.
Given that the author showed sarcasm and hostility towards anyone perceived to be less technically literate from the very start, I wouldn't be surprised at the user's reaction, although I agree she should show some level of appreciation for what is essentially unpaid IT work.
> extremely basic thing to be confused about
No, the confusion is that PowerPoint even allows links and references, rather than directly embedding the content. You're expecting the user to be familiar with PowerPoint's feature set, and in my experience the linking/referencing feature is used rarely.
It doesn't help that the software purposefully hides the fact that it's a reference in order to make the experience more seamless.