[wplug] [Advocacy] Re: My distro beat up your distro (yet again, sigh) -- Consumers

[D. Joe]

On Tue, Jul 24, 2007 at 08:16:57AM -0400, Michael H. Semcheski wrote:
> On 7/24/07, Bryan J. Smith <b.j.smith at ieee.org> wrote:
> >Consumers are responsible for their own decisions they make. 
> >Yet they wonder why and how Microsoft was able to obtain its
> >near-monopoly?
> 
> In the average year, the average user doesn't spend as much
> time as it took me to write this email thinking about
> Microsoft.

Well and pithily said.  

Saying consumers are or should be responsible brings to my mind
the phrase "informed consent," a phrase more often heard in the
context of medical decision-making.
 
What irks me so much with the idea is that it shoots holes in
the whole idea of specialization--to really make a
well-"informed" medical decision, I'd need training that
approaches what what my doctor has, wouldn't I?  Who has time to
become that well informed in every product or service that one
buys these days?

To make the sorts of decisions about software choice that many
of us have made requires one to be informed about intricacies
far above and beyond the level a random, person-on-the-street
wants to attain or (given their other interests and
responsibilities, let alone raw ability) might be capable of
doing.  In other words, most people have . . . you know . . .
lives.

Usually, people rely on trusted professionals to help them in
areas in which quality counts but in which the consumer does not
have expertise.  "Trusted professional" is *exactly* the role
that the branded players in the computer industry *should* be
filling.  But they are not--they are *betraying* that trust.

Here's another, different take on the issue to chew over, but
one that still sounds a certain blame-the-victim note:

 http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/lexicon.html#moenslaw-bicycles

-- 
Joe