>most personal computing devices don't boot into a programming environment

Yes, but now everyone and their mum has a personal computing device, and there's tutorials readily accessible, and five seconds of googling can bring you to an online programming environment.

▲

musicale 27 minutes ago | parent [-]

All true, but the onramp isn't included in the box. When you get a smartphone, how do you know that you could even program it? Is there any encouragement to do so vs. just buying apps? They are more like game consoles, in more ways than one.

As I mentioned, I think graphing calculators might be an exception.

▲

thfuran 19 minutes ago | parent [-]

In the mid 80s, something like 10% of US households had any computer at all. That the onramp is in the box doesn't really matter to the people who never saw the box.

	▲	musicale 12 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I guess the question is how you measure accessibility - per device, or across the population as a whole? In 2026 several billion people have computing devices, but the devices no longer provide that programming onramp. Interestingly enough, it looks like ~25% of the world's population is still offline.