I think that's a bit of an illusion. Yes, the average person wants tech to "just work", but what that usually means is "just work the way I need it to work for my specific purposes in my specific circumstances".
It's true that the average person doesn't want to spend time tinkering with tech and take the risk of breaking things. But that's not the same thing as being happy with how things work, and it's not the same thing as using tech as productively as possible.
When I write software or talk to people about how they use software, they always want it to work somewhat differently. They do want customisation for entirely sensible and very specific reasons. They just don't want to do it themselves. That's why consulting and support is a huge global industry.
The problem with "just works" is that it only has meaning where the requirements are specified in great detail with very little variability. That's always trivially the case for single purpose household appliances. It's also the case for things like making phone calls or for device drivers. No one wants to "customise" a device driver to stop it from draining the battery.
But computers are not single purpose devices. They are used for a million different things in a million different situations. "Just works" is largely undefined outside of core OS functionality. And that's why the appliance metaphor just doesn't work.
But that's not the same thing as being happy with how things work, and it's not the same thing as using tech as productively as possible.
If productivity of end-users was the goal then we wouldn't see random changes to interfaces that people had learnt, for no other reason than some graphic designer thinks it doesn't look "fresh".
The truth is for most of what most people do, computing was solved around 2010-ish and all anyone wants now is for things to be more reliable, faster and cheaper. But that's much harder work for companies that a new flat interface style, or some animated emojis.
That, and their goal isn't actually to make a better product. A better product can be a means to an end, but the real goal is to increase the rate of growth, and more often than not that flat interface style convinces some manager or consumer that they need the latest one.
Some of the reason for interface changes is that otherwise people think that nothing changed, and it's easier to make a cosmetic change to UI than make users read release notes.
It's true that the average person doesn't want to spend time tinkering with tech and take the risk of breaking things. But that's not the same thing as being happy with how things work, and it's not the same thing as using tech as productively as possible.
When I write software or talk to people about how they use software, they always want it to work somewhat differently. They do want customisation for entirely sensible and very specific reasons. They just don't want to do it themselves. That's why consulting and support is a huge global industry.
The problem with "just works" is that it only has meaning where the requirements are specified in great detail with very little variability. That's always trivially the case for single purpose household appliances. It's also the case for things like making phone calls or for device drivers. No one wants to "customise" a device driver to stop it from draining the battery.
But computers are not single purpose devices. They are used for a million different things in a million different situations. "Just works" is largely undefined outside of core OS functionality. And that's why the appliance metaphor just doesn't work.