I find it more similar to
is there any problem that the average commuter faces everyday and gets tired of that can light people up and be a reason to start studying how to change their tires/fluids/brake lights and car maintenance in general?
There's a great amount of utility that can be gained from learning just a small amount of programming, especially shell programming or "scripting languages" like Perl. Sure, it might take a few hours to learn the basics of a simple language, but the amount of time it can save you on automating many tasks will more than pay off in the long run.
Now, there are people who will say "huh, my car is oozing mutant goo again, better take it in to the shop so they can add some new goo for me" and there are people who who will say "ok, I've wasted enough time/money having these yahoos fix up my car, time to see if I can find out any info on what this goo is and replace it myself". People in the first category are probably a hopeless case, but people in the second category may just need a little prod to set them on the path toward Perl-Fu Enlightenment.
