The software and systems marketed to help people make money on the web always claim to make things easy for the non-technical customer. You don't have to know HTML. You don't have to learn CSS or PHP.
It's true you don't have to know as much as you did in the past. It's true many of these systems DO make things easier than they used to be. It's true the learning curve for a web development product like DreamWeaver is steeper. However, at some level you simple CAN NOT get away from the necessity of some technical knowledge.
I was reminded of this when I attempted to actually publish my first XSitePro website. Let me point out this is not a condemnation of XSitePro. They just happen to be my most recent experience with this universal problem.
When you go to actually publish the site the system displays a screen that asks you to enter information you got when you set up your hosting account. Unfortunately, the information web hosting companies send out can be quite different from host to host. It depends on what software they use and how they have chosen to set it up. These setup commands are the worst kind of technobabble. They also must be entered Exactly right. That means case, special symbols, etc. must all be correct or the command fails. The failure error messages are extremely cryptic and may or may not relate to the actual problem. There are to many variations for anyone to have a prayer of automating the process.
The first item they want is Domain Name. For example, www.samplesite.com. That's easy enough, but are you sure you want to use the www part of that? Would samplesite.com without the www be better? The answer to that question is VERY technical but getting it wrong may reduce the ability of your site to rank well because the benefits of links may be diluted.
The next item is Home Directory. The first time around I missed the note in the fine print which said "Unless you have a specific requirement this should be left blank." I filled it in with what I thought was the right information. The software obediently published the site where I said it should. Unfortunately, that was not the folder you arrive at when typing the domain name into your browser. So, even though the software said my site was published, it was in the wrong place and not visible. Figuring that out required use of another program that let me look directly at the file structure on the server. That's getting a little technical 
Now we arrive at FTP Directory. The welcome message from the hosting service I use does NOT include this little tidbit. I suspect the usual non-technical user might find /domains/samplesite.com/public_html just a little difficult to locate and enter properly!!
In other words, the idea a completely non-technical user will be able to quickly and easily publish a bunch of websites is a myth. They are going to need occasional help from someone who does understand the technology. Once you have a working example and a pattern to follow things will be easy until something changes. Then it is an ugly problem that has to be dealt with again.
On the bright side, non-technical people frequently know about things that make good content. Many technical people, especially the young ones, don't know anything except tech. They can do all sorts of technical wizardry, but then look around and can't figure out what to write about. I think there is a tremendous opportunity for one technical person to support the technical needs of 15-20 writers. That way both can do what they do best to the benefit of all.
