Oh my god Is anyone on this plane a computer programmer?

My friend was trying to get support for a software bug with his young daughter's electric wheelchair. He had submitted the support form on the manufacturer's site and not heard anything back in weeks.

He wanted to know if I could help with the wheel chair, I could not. However, I filled out and submitted support form with the inspector open. The ajax response was an HTTP 500 database error but the inept UI said "Thanks for Contacting Us" indicating success.

I contacted them about it via Twitter and they straightened it out and got in contact with my friend within a couple days.

A couple of times I'll see a friend doing something toilsome, and set them up with a script or tool to make it easier. A trivial example is Instagram limits the number of hashtags to 30, but has a poor UX if you exceed that number. A quick bash command later and the tags are being enumerated to make it easier to see how many tags there are.

Another one is a friend is a huge fan of smart IoT devices, some of them on Siri, some of them on Alexa. He had to remember which voice assistant reach device was on, which got confusing with all the different devices (mostly lights), so I setup a home assistant bridge for him, so everything is now accessible via Siri.

Yet another one, a friend had their laptop hooked up to a projector which was cumbersome because their laptop was tethered to the project all the time and they couldn't move around with it. So I gave them a Pi (pre-shortage) and taught them some software so they usually have that hooked up now instead.

Years ago, more on the IT side, but I'd clear out crapware laden Windows laptops of accumulated spyware. They'd be able to put off buying a new laptop for a while longer, saving them money they may not have had.

Like most people, I've done lots of configuration of computers and networks over the years, none of which has any relation to writing code. It's more like if you're a mathematician and someone wants you to help with their taxes.

Otoh, anyone who has built a product has essentially done what you're suggesting, noticed a bad situation and used software to solve it, so I don't find it that depressing.

I've also got a lot of carpentry experience, that's definitely had more of a use in the way you're suggesting.

Yes, a few times. One example: A friend had to submit an online form but made a mistake. The page allowed you to resubmit the data, except for some fields which became uneditable. As (bad) luck would have it, the error was in one of those. The fix would have involved calling the next day and dealing with DMV-like bureaucracy.

So I fired the browser developer tools and saw how the elements were disabled, made the correction, and resubmitted.

No, it is will almost certainly be a thankless task.

yes some home automation things if no one wants 'the cloud' to be involved