2) simple code is easy to read, but hard to write.
If you're a programmer, and you're not surrounded by people conflating both words, consider yourself lucky. What does a coworker really means by "I did the simplest possible thing" ?
For example, for me, statement 1 is false. Simplicity is also subjective
I am one of the people conflating the terms. Are they used from the devs pov? Like what's easiest for you (add one more parameter to this function or another special case handled with its) might make things more complicated.
From the customer pov simple or easy is the same, or?!
Simple = One thing not 'mixed - linked - folded' with anything else. That's why he says it is objective - if you look at something and see it's mixed up with something else, it's not simple (in his terms, now it's complex - eg many things woven together)
Easy = Near to you. Near in as you know it already, or you have it already and so on.
His talk is for the dev pov, but even outside of dev, simple does not mean easy all the time.
For example, (and something I am struggling with right now) it is simple to lose weight - eat less calories than you burn each day. Simple.
But I can attest it is far from easy.