They wouldn't be because HN is a self-selected sample of people who tend to have tech experience, which tends to lend itself to certain ways of thinking.
If an ecommerce site depended entirely on looking through their catalog with SQL commands, I'd imagine most of the HN community would be able to navigate it (although possibly unhappy with it). I'd imagine most of the general population would not be.
> If an ecommerce site depended entirely on looking through their catalog with SQL commands, I'd imagine most of the HN community would be able to navigate it (although possibly unhappy with it).
I would love it, and I would switch to that site immediately.
Every time I have to shop for something on-line these days I'm thinking about making a scrapper populating an SQLite database with that site's catalog, because e-commerce UX is insanely bad, and even a simple SQL database browser would be an order of magnitude of improvement.
If an ecommerce site depended entirely on looking through their catalog with SQL commands, I'd imagine most of the HN community would be able to navigate it (although possibly unhappy with it). I'd imagine most of the general population would not be.