This feels like it might be selection bias. I’m cautious to say that with more certainty, I hope my caveat below makes that clear.
No doubt these people exist, and I’ve worked with people who were similarly quick to stop debugging and come bother me with their problems that had nothing to do with whatever underlying thing I’d built. But the vast majority of my users have not come to me at all, because either they haven’t had any problems or they’ve done the appropriate legwork to investigate their own stuff first. A few come to me with legitimate bugs.
Caveat: these relative proportions have varied a lot depending on context, of course. But I can’t think of any context where the worst case was even conceivably close to average.
You’re right, I probably am biased. I run an HTTP API, and a lot of devs are unfamiliar with how to use HTTP APIs, especially when interfacing with an API without an SDK.
But take a look at any moderately popular OSS and the issues will be littered with “issues” that are actually due to the app code, not the OSS.
With that being said -- it was probably hyperbolic to use the term “average”, but meh.
Sorry, the particular bias I wanted to point out could be more clear. I think it’s possible that many of your users solve their own problems before they ever report anything at all. You won’t hear from them, so their problem solving demeanor won’t register unless you’re assuming some users are self-serving their problems. The “selection” part of this bias is applying your experience from people who report issues to people who experience issues. It’s very easy to get a very wrong picture of your user base by assuming the people who show up are representative of the people who use the thing you made!
It’s also very possible the thing you made is so effortless or free of potential problems that the only people having them are having their own problems! That introduces another bias: the only problems are self error. Unfortunately that means you built the thing well and you only get crap feedback, and unfortunately for you it makes feedback itself seem suspect.
No doubt these people exist, and I’ve worked with people who were similarly quick to stop debugging and come bother me with their problems that had nothing to do with whatever underlying thing I’d built. But the vast majority of my users have not come to me at all, because either they haven’t had any problems or they’ve done the appropriate legwork to investigate their own stuff first. A few come to me with legitimate bugs.
Caveat: these relative proportions have varied a lot depending on context, of course. But I can’t think of any context where the worst case was even conceivably close to average.