>we should be able to have OSs that are Digital Assistants.
Please don't touch my OS.
>Regular users are consistently struggling with low-level concepts like 'files' and similar remnants of trying to emulate desktop metaphors from the workplaces of the 80ies.
I'm going to make argument that regular users are struggling with directory structures because of how OSes are increasingly "helpful". In DOS 2.0, it was simple: each physical disk has filesystem with tree structure, no shortcuts, no symlinks. I doubt anybody was confused by that. But let's pretend I don't know about usual quirks and see how that goes in Windows: where the hell is "Desktop"? Does everything is contained inside it? After all, "My Computer" icon is there, and clicking "dir up" in My Computer goes back to Desktop! But then, Desktop itself is contained in My Computer, so hmm... And why on Desktop there are shortcuts there that.. doesn't seem to be in Desktop directory? Ah, because they are in some magic place "C:/Users/Public/Desktop". And by the way, why it is usually called "Pulpit" (localized name in my language), but when in path it's not localized and just "Desktop"? Where my browser stores browsing history? Surely it must be in some file? Right, probably in user directory... wait, how do I open user directory? Documents folder surely must be stored inside it, so let's click "dir up" there. Uh, it went back to dreaded My Computer. Fine, I will go there manually through C:/Users/. So the browser files will be in AppData.. but it isn't here.. ah right, it is hidden for some reason. But there's still something fishy about the Documents, it doesn't behave like a normal directory. Let's see in Properties dialog, there's Location tab, so it looks like it works like shortcut to it, simple enough. Uh.. actually no, because it is part of "Libraries" mechanism, and is actually configured in AppData/Roaming/Microsoft/Windows/Libraries. Documents (and other libraries) might be actually configured to squash multiple directories in their virtual view. Now, why OneDrive is another special directory, and even worse, MS Office seems to have special relationship with it? And so on and so on...
Really, it's no wonder that most regular people are confused about it.
Please don't touch my OS.
>Regular users are consistently struggling with low-level concepts like 'files' and similar remnants of trying to emulate desktop metaphors from the workplaces of the 80ies.
I'm going to make argument that regular users are struggling with directory structures because of how OSes are increasingly "helpful". In DOS 2.0, it was simple: each physical disk has filesystem with tree structure, no shortcuts, no symlinks. I doubt anybody was confused by that. But let's pretend I don't know about usual quirks and see how that goes in Windows: where the hell is "Desktop"? Does everything is contained inside it? After all, "My Computer" icon is there, and clicking "dir up" in My Computer goes back to Desktop! But then, Desktop itself is contained in My Computer, so hmm... And why on Desktop there are shortcuts there that.. doesn't seem to be in Desktop directory? Ah, because they are in some magic place "C:/Users/Public/Desktop". And by the way, why it is usually called "Pulpit" (localized name in my language), but when in path it's not localized and just "Desktop"? Where my browser stores browsing history? Surely it must be in some file? Right, probably in user directory... wait, how do I open user directory? Documents folder surely must be stored inside it, so let's click "dir up" there. Uh, it went back to dreaded My Computer. Fine, I will go there manually through C:/Users/. So the browser files will be in AppData.. but it isn't here.. ah right, it is hidden for some reason. But there's still something fishy about the Documents, it doesn't behave like a normal directory. Let's see in Properties dialog, there's Location tab, so it looks like it works like shortcut to it, simple enough. Uh.. actually no, because it is part of "Libraries" mechanism, and is actually configured in AppData/Roaming/Microsoft/Windows/Libraries. Documents (and other libraries) might be actually configured to squash multiple directories in their virtual view. Now, why OneDrive is another special directory, and even worse, MS Office seems to have special relationship with it? And so on and so on...
Really, it's no wonder that most regular people are confused about it.