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Peter asks:
... you essentially said that people use PCs because they are lazy, sheep, cheap and/or thieves, are too dumb to keep track of their money, are hypocritical, blind to other points of view, are kids who like to play games, and don't like change.
Yes, but please realize that this is merely trying to articulate identifiable aspects of an otherwise highly complex and multi-dimensional world of motivation. I'm not claiming that all factors are always present, or make any sort of representation as to how they are respectively weighted.
I will, however, dare to generalize that I believe that most of the time, sticking with the Status Quo is frequently due to simple reluctance and resistance to change, so it takes a lot of "trouble" to push them out of their comfort zone.
The good news is that there's probably a reasonably large segment who doesn't have problems with Windows.
The bad news is that for those who do, seemingly half of these consumers are just as likely to throw his problemmatic Dell on the trash pile and replace it with an HP...but still running the same problemmatic OS. This is irrational.
Your remarks bring to mind a post from way back around page five that opined that Mac aficiandos think they know what's best for everybody else.
While you might believe that I'm advocating the Mac OS, I actually don't care what OS people buy or what marketshare the Mac OS has.
My point is that it is currently a viable alternative, and because free and open competition fosters marketplace health which benefits all consumers, it is a good thing to have around. Personally, I support both OS's.
Thus, I'm not trying to dictate to anyone what they should buy, but I'm merely advocating that they should remember to be objective in their decision-making because this will allow competition to work for the consumer's long term benefit.
Nevertheless, I will say that I am particularly astounded at just how much utter nonsense people will tolerate with personal computers in particular, and for some reason they seem resigned that it is their "FATE" to having to suffer with it. Bottom line is that fixed Destinies is an obsolete archaic belief: if the product doesn't work, change!
And while I generally am referring to Windows with my above statement, Apple's products aren't without their warts either. The bottom line is that if a consumer doesn't do his own objective & independent research for his needs, then he can't later complain about what someone else chose for him: people just need to suck it up and take responsibility for their decisions, instead of trying to play being the victim.
-hh
