rudedog,
No one will continue to buy a car that malfunctions,
cheap or expensive.
Windows established supremecy via M$FT's monopoly,
not by any other means.
Consumers don't know about O/S's anymore than they
know about internal combustion engines, and they shouldn't
have to know anything about them. They only bought
MS-DOS because they didn't have a choice (in the very
beginning), then they bought it to get at the apps (and
there were no other choices except a truly pitiful OS/2
--Unix is not included here because it wasn't marketed
as an O/S for PCs at that point), and finally consumers
bought MS-DOS/Windows because M$FT threatened all the
major resales channels if they didn't.
Consumers buy apps not O/S's & M$FT made certain that
competing apps didn't work on THEIR O/S as well as
THEIR apps.
In my mind, the M$FT monopoly from the beginning became
abusive to consumers when Gates & Ballmer realized that
their apps only had to be "good enough" and "better
than the competition" in order to sell in the millions.
They had no incentive toward excellence, so they did
what came naturally, opted for mediocrity. Mediocrity
has its benefits, rudedog. It easier, simpler, and
cheaper to execute than excellence. It enhances
corporate profitability with little or no risk of
reprisal.
The problem is: consumers deserve better.
BTW: bugs come in different shapes & sizes. Consumers
don't "choose" to re-boot their PC's. They do it out
of necessity. Maybe the payoff is that they still get
to use a Word Processor instead of an IBM selectric,
but that doesn't mean that they haven't been harmed.
As I've said before, the consumer deserves the best
product for the lowest price, not a product that is
just "good enough". That describes the Yugo perfectly.
cheers,
cherylw |
