> If that means they're stupid, then you have to design for stupids.
No, because it means they're being stupid, not that they are "stupids", like it's a zodiac sign. So they should stop being stupid.
> The problem is devs who insist that the user should accommodate the software rather than the other way around.
Writing good documentation is accomodating users, and there is a lot of stuff that is very simple but still can't keep to a common way of how things work (because it's all mostly fluff functionally anyway, and needs to "differentiate itself" in some gimmicky way), and none of it has decent documentation -- so people are left to ask each other in random forums or elsewhere how anything works. IMO that's being lazy, and not paying users for work the developers should have done.
If it was designed "for stupids", it would have very clear instructions in big letters which still would hold true after 20 years, because "stupids" don't always have the latest thing.
https://www.gpsoft.com.au/help/opus12/index.html
Nobody remembers that, or reads all of it just for fun. But it's all there if you need, thorough and up-to-date. Old Opera was also like that, and none of my non-techie friends or relatives ever had problems with it. I'm sure many other programs still are, as in they do follow allll the best practices an application "designed for dummies" would, but then they also have a good documentation, and maybe a CLI interface and other things a programmer might want so called power-users (as opposed to powerless consumers?) to have. Current users are getting ripped off by being trained and conditioned by marketing departments, not peers and teachers with good intent.