| What I was trying to convey (apparently you may have missed the humor
| marked with "g") was that with software and computers there can be a
| myriad of things that go "wrong" or conflict that the typical layman
| cannot immediately intuit, unlike the example of the power tool that
| doesn't work.
|

I got the joke, and I don't mean to belabor the point.

I'm just pointing out that it doesn't have to be viewed
as mysterious. That's a "disempowering" approach.
I see so many people who are thoroughly flummoxed
by nearly all electronic devices and conclude
that only teenagers can understand them. (In fact,
most teenagers don't understand them. It just looks
that way because they're very good at Facebooking
or finding the TV show they want to watch. They're
experienced consumers, not superior tech experts.)

Many people don't want to deal with computers and
find it tedious, but for any handy person who cares to
explore, the information is out there. (Unfortunately
there's an awfully lot of it to know.

I really don't see a power tool as different. How
many "lay people" can take apart their drill and figure
out that it needs new brushes, then find a source
for those brushes and replace them? (Much less
rebuild an electric clock.) For the vast majority of people,
a drill or a computer or a car or a clock are all necessary
but mysterious tools. They understand nothing of how
those tools work and have no interest in understanding.
They turn it on, cross their fingers, hope it does what
they need, then turn it off and forget about it as soon
as possible. Actually, cars and computers might be easier
to fix than clocks and drills, if only because there's so
much documentation readily available, and the parts
are easier to find.

There's a very good chance that Gordon Shumway can
hunt down the cause of his problem, if he wants to take
the time, without needing to be a computer programmer.
Most computer problems are either explained in help files
(which no one bothers to read) or are answered
somewhere online by someone else who's already solved
the problem.