I guess it would be good for people who want to run a witness node to have some level of sys admin knowledge and some technical understanding of the workings of the chain. Doesn't have to be deep but some level of understanding will really help the decentralization. If it's just a matter of "set it and forget it", then during difficult periods there is a much higher likelihood of all those nodes going down (or worse, to be tricked, infiltrated or co-opted). The witness node operator also has to review proposed updates to the chain and implement them if deemed desirable. Imagine hundreds of witnesses who blindly implement updates - that can be very problematic.

I don't think every witness has to be a sys admin and a developer, but a conceptual understanding of things and being able to operate the node on their own would be highly beneficial to the network's resilience.

Anyways, there is a step-by-step guide on setting up a witness node, if you'd like to give it a try: https://gitlab.syncad.com/hive/devportal/-/blob/develop/_nodeop/witness-node.md We can help if you get stuck on any point, and the guide can be improved accordingly, so that it becomes cleaner for others. If you also have questions about any of this, I and others would be happy to chime in. Better to do it on-chain than in messages so that it would be available to others.