I personally don’t hate the prequels, but I haven’t seen them in close to ten years and doubt that I’ll see them again for as long as I live. As far as I’m concerned, the prequels were just devices to suck a few hours of my life away with no reward and I doubt that if I weren’t such a big fan then I’d have even given them second chances. I don’t think that the general public is missing anything by not seeing them, but should people who are big Star Wars fans even bother with them if they haven’t seen them already? Especially people who are knew to the franchise with the recent movies, and only know the OT and the ST.