...the difference between a mature consumer product, and an imature one. Autos today are pretty much mature products; the average user does not need to know very much about what makes it work in order to get reliable performance and long life out of it. It took the auto industry about 50 years to get to that point. Televisions are a similar example; it took much tweaking and maintenance to keep a TV working. Now, anyone can walk out of big-box store and plug one in.

PCs today are certainly much closer to maturity than they were 15 years ago. But Windows PCs certainly still have a long way to go. (I think of them as 50-era cars; they sure look advanced compared to the previous generation, but they are not well built and do not last very long at all)

Linux is much farther from being what I'd consider a "consumer" product. It still requires far more knowledge and skill than the average user is willing to invest in.