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North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: The Death of TCP/IP
On Sun, 05 Aug 2001 22:26:00 EDT, Wojtek Zlobicki <[email protected]> said: > Agreed, BUT .... as stated by Cringley himself, Microsoft tailors their > software to the > populus. Wow a software company listening to its users, what a travesty. Does a manufacturer of *any* product have a moral obligation to give their customers what they ask for, if they know that it would be a bad/unsafe idea? I'm sure consumers would want a backyard gas grill that can heat itself up to cooking temperature in 5 seconds flat. The average consumer may not realize that this also means you're 7 seconds away from a fire, but the design engineers should know that. There *are* successful corporations that make a conscious decision to disregard the customers when they feel they have a moral obligation to do so. I know Chick-Fil-A loses my business every time I want a chicken sandwich on Sunday. I'm sure *most* of their customers wish they were open on Sunday - but they have their reasons, clearly explained on a big sign on every store I've been in. Also, remember that when Microsoft says "We just gave users what they asked for", there's a *VERY* good chance that (a) the users didn't know they had a *CHOICE* (you don't believe me, stop 50 people in front of a WalMart sometime, and ask them if a PC can run anything other than Windows), and (b) would probably answer differently if the question was rephrased ("Would you want more ease-of-use features, if those features also meant that some hacker from a Third World country could use them to hack into your computer, take your credit card numbers, and generally make your life miserable?"). -- Valdis Kletnieks Operating Systems Analyst Virginia Tech Attachment:
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