I've said before on HN that fear of what may happen stops many people from experimenting with computers, coupled with locking everything down and hiding the non-consumer-friendly aspects out of site.
Starting with a blinking cursor, the worst you could do was format a floppy disk with your work on it - or blow a fuse because you were tinkering with the internals.
It works on that generation of machines, but when I was young I carried that philosophy into learning Unix in the early 90s, and some of the results weren't as positive. It was a net positive, though.
I've said before on HN that fear of what may happen stops many people from experimenting with computers, coupled with locking everything down and hiding the non-consumer-friendly aspects out of site.
Starting with a blinking cursor, the worst you could do was format a floppy disk with your work on it - or blow a fuse because you were tinkering with the internals.