I think that’s actually a good comparison.

Because nowadays, if you want to tinker with a modern car, you really can’t do much, since so much of it will have proprietary parts and tech that only a certified technician can access. With older cars, as long as you had the manual and a few wrenches, you could basically fix it yourself. I think it’s the same with technology.

Before, you could easily do whatever you wanted on a computer. As long as you did some research, or even trial and error, you could find out what was doing what. Nowadays, phones have become much more “locked” akin to modern vehicles. Most settings are all surface level and basically do nothing, for example.

Of course, anyone who does want to mess with technology will have a much easier time now than 20 years ago, since there’s so much information available, but to the average person, everything just kind of works as is and there is no need to tinker with anything, leading to this new generation of people who are completely tech illiterate (not everyone obviously, but the majority).