There's a difference between contempt (i.e. "users are stupid") and realism, though. And realism can range from "users don't want to troubleshoot" to "some users are near-violently anti-tech and won't read errors", depending on context.

The unfortunate truth is that if you're doing B2C or even B2B outside of tech companies, the second one will often come up...

Bad devs exist. Bad users do too. Thing is, you can't usually fire the bad users.

> And realism can range from "users don't want to troubleshoot" to "some users are near-violently anti-tech and won't read errors", depending on context.

No dude, I have things to do and your little software is a tiny roadblock in my day. I dont want to become a fellow expert in your niche, do the thing and get out of my way.

Building UI for work and for consumers is completely different. I’ve done both, user attitudes are veeeery different. Building an ecommerce page is also very different to building an engagement trap for users to sit in.

Problems start when engineers/designers/producters don’t understand their users and their goals. Or when the user is not also the customer (this is the worst)