CLI punishes uncertainty (but so does a start button to exit Windows). The CLI has no affordances. -No buttons, no hints, and no “maybe you meant…” to help you along.

Typing speed matters more than people admit. Slow typists hate the CLI because every action feels like work, mistakes are punishing, and repetition is exhausting. If typing is taxing physically or cognitively, the CLI becomes a chore instead of a tool.

Memory Burden: You must remember everything! As I’m aging, I’m forgetting more and more and it’s not like I wasn’t in the top 5% bracket for intelligence when I was younger. GUIs externalize memory and are seen as convenient. I’m comfortable in CLI now, but will probably not be for long.

People who dislike the CLI often don’t enjoy memorizing commands (which is understandable). They don’t retain syntax well or use the CLI often enough for muscle memory to form. If you don’t use it daily, it never stops feeling foreign. I love how I can organize and move files by type from subfolders to a home folder with a single line, but when I haven’t done it in a while; it’s still worth doing over drag and drop, but I still have to put effort into it.

CLI makes people feel stupid (“command not found”), unsafe (“rm: are you sure?”), and unwelcome. Even seasoned system administrators can easily make a simple typo that can bring a Linux server to its knees (Linux lacks safeguards.)

Linux users who learn CLI tend to express their inferiority complex which is seen as elitism, gatekeeping, and condescension. People may dislike CLI simply for the culture around it.

Many tasks aren’t even suited for CLI. No one is doing professional media editing from a terminal emulator. People can get by on Windows without it, while they can’t go without GUI.