adam wrote:

You must remember the period where various electronic devices, from phones to radios, were available in transparent cases. You may have found them utterly cool. Yet the simple fact that you can't find these things on the shelves anymore (except for do-it-yourself PC cases) means the crowd doesn't find them nearly that cool. While you may not see the link yet, this is exactly why the Linux desktop will never be popular.
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This is one of the things that makes it appealing to technology enthusiasts because their brains recognize the concept of "technical elegance," analogous to "mathematical elegance," a concept beyond the reach of non-mathematicians. In other words, they see beauty in the insides of hardware and/or software. But the crowd has a different opinion; being technophobists, transparency in design and implementation is inelegant, even repelling. Indeed, when you try to explain your old folks why Linux is technologically superior, you scare them away.

errr since i'm writing this on a PC which I built and has a transparent case i think the writer may have a point

Keep in mind that the 'crowd's' perception of what is cool about technology and electronics has vacilated back and forth over the decades. People have been curious, then migrated to not caring to a state of fear and back again. Depending on what era we're talking about. Another thing to consider is that what's been on the inside has also changed. If you look at old electronics (60's era), they're pretty ugly. 80's era stuff after the Apple started to look pretty elegant. If you look inside most case mods now, you'll see a ton of LEDs and fan lights. A great parallel can be drawn from what's been under the hood of automobiles the last 30 years.