Free software scares normal people

I actually think ffmpeg’s UI is simpler than Handbrake for those at all acquainted with the command line (i.e., for those who understand the concept of text-is-everything-everything-is-text). Handbrake shows you everything you can possibly fiddle with whether or not you plan on fiddling with it. Meanwhile ffmpeg hides everything, period, and you ask for specific features by typing them out. It's not great for discovery but once you get the hang of it, it is incredibly precise. One could imagine taking someone for whom Handbrake was too much and showing them “look, you just type `ffmpeg -i`, the input file, and the output file, and it does what you want”. I imagine for many people this would be a perfectly lovely interface.

FFMpeg's command line is practically a programming language.

Someone who only wants to convert from one format to another, and isn't accustomed to CLIs, is far better served by "drag the file here -> type an output filename and extension in the text box".

The problem (and the reason both FFMpeg and Handbrake exist) is that tons of people "only" want to do two or three specific tasks, all in the same general wheelhouse, but with terrible overlap.

It's funny: "in my head," Handbrake and ffmpeg are two different tools, with very different purposes. Even though they "do the same thing," the context when I use one over the other is very different.

Handbrake is easier in that I don't have to think too hard about how to use it; but that I think a lot more critically about the options that I choose.

FFmpeg is easier when I go in knowing the exact options I want; often pulled from notes that I've stored away, or combined with scripts.