Free software scares normal people

The handbrake UI is not designed for "power users", the handbrake UI is designed to make available all the options the underlying technology provides, so that you may leverage it to the fullest.

If you don't want that, it provides you with presets.

I do understand that many users are too lazy to read a manual, do a google search, or put any minimal amount of effort in solving an issue, but making software worse or more convoluted the second you need to have a miniscule degree of extra control seems pointless.

Too many people look at FOSS the same way the look at commercial end user software, they think they are the equivalent of a custom and they should get a premium custom like experience. But that's false. Most of the time FOSS is the result of fixing a developer's problem, or fixing the problems of somebody who also happens to be a developer, and then sharing it all with the world.

You cannot be surprised when a software made by a developer offers every single possible setting, because that's exactly what it was meant to do in the first place.

The solution is not "making software easier", the solution is to RTFM.

You call the users lazy for not wanting to read software manuals. Maybe you should rtfm on what other people are actually like.

"Laziness", "put any minimal amount of effort", RTFM... that's exactly the kind of language and perspective that's the problem.

The majority of your users are not lazy, they have gazillions of other things to think about and to do. Even when they are developers.

Now, that's up to you, as a maker, to decide who your tool is serving, and for what purpose: it's totally fine and valid to target the power user, or your specific use case. Just don't act surprised, or reject the responsibility, that someone else will find a bigger audience with a lesser product, only because it is more affordable, cognitively speaking.

People are actually software-defined.

People don't want to have to read manuals and become experts on every task. They want tools to get something done so they can focus their limited time and attention on things they care more about.

I'm the kind of person who wants to understand how everything I touch works (and the kind of person that does a lot of video recompression and cares about quality and filesize tradeoff) and even I hate Handbrake's UI. Every time I set up a new machine I spend an hour or two looking for an internet guide to what settings mean what to configure a preset, and then I use that preset basically exclusively. I'd much rather have a couple of drop targets, one of which is "Bluray 1080p quality".