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Monday February 19, 2007
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OK, all you who take umbrage at Joel Johnson's heated Gizmodo post, let's stop and think about this for a sec. Are you saying the consumer electronics industry DOESN'T foist shovelfuls of garbage on us? And that we as early adopters, bloggers, tech journalists, and "influencers" aren't in some measure complicit and maybe even responsible for that?
Lance said Joel's column was an exercise in self-loathing. Yet it's Lance who "consider[s] it a badge of honor to try things out first, to suffer through bad design and ill-thought out products."
Should we have to? Does being a tech enthusiast and early adopter mean shelling out cash to be an unofficial beta tester? Does it mean we're doomed to a lifetime of hunting down and participating in forums where we discuss how to update buggy firmware, hack our way around the restrictions built into our gadgets, and push back the ever-looming planned obsolescence our expensive tech gear inevitably succumbs to? And why have forums taken the place of customer service and tech support anyway? Oh, right...because they're more helpful and knowledgeable.
As for Joel's "stop buying crap" tirade, who among us hasn't felt like that after bricking an MP3 player, wrestling with a half-baked UI, or finding out that you can't actually sync your Samsung Sync phone without paying an extra $40 for a USB cable and crappy stock headphones (both of which are proprietary, of course)? Who among us hasn't been ripped off or mistreated by a tech company, sworn never to buy anything from them ever again, and then given that same company our money when the right shiny gadget went on sale for the right price? Come on, fess up.
And tell me, which of the following statements from Joel's column do we disagree with?
You may think you're making up the "bleeding edge" of "gadget pimpatude" but you're really just a loose confederation of marks the consumer electronics industry uses as free market research and easy money.
...you guys just ate it up. Kept buying [s_____] phones and broken media devices green and dripping with DRM.
Then you had the audacity to complain about broken phones, half-assed firmware that bricked your gear, and winner-takes-nothing arms races...
Circle back again in six months when they're shilling the incremental upgrade and ask them why the last version didn't cut the mustard.
One thing I will agree with Lance on is that publications like PC Magazine play an important role in bursting the hype bubble with our hands-on testing and with stories like our annual Reader Satisfaction Survey. But that stuff only helps if we (myself included) wait to read it before dropping our cash. I will if you will...
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February 19, 2007 3:07 PM
While Joel's core point is absolutely valid, and I don't hear anyone discrediting it, his incredibly high-horsed "I know better than you because I made this industry" attitude is misplaced. I don't think anyone would disagree that early adopters pay the price for being early adopters, but I don't honestly think that any reasonable person runs straight out and buys something they don't want or need otherwise just because it's new and available in different colors. I think the whole reason technology publications exist is to educate people in a helpful manner about what's on the horizon, what it can do for you, how it's different from what's available now, and whether or not it's worthwhile.
I think it's difficult for some people who have been schmoozing and shilling as long as Joel has to remember that the vast majority of people turn to technology publications and blogs for information, advice, and to be on the bleeding edge of technology...in their heads. No one's heading to Gizmodo to read about a hot new cellphone only available in Japan and then go to their sources to order one even though it won't work in the States-and if they do, they could care less about Joel's perspective, or their disposable income.
If Joel's willing to come down off of his high horse and acknowledge that people buy things they want, and if they don't work or if they have problems it's not because he had anything to do with it, then maybe someone will pay more attention to his point than his attitude. The only person guilty of ceaselessly "buying crap" are the folks that Joel runs with. I simply think your average household doesn't buy "crap" the way that Joel thinks they do. We need to be careful about separating tech enthusiasts, who, like anyone with a hobby, spend more money on what they're enthusiastic about, from mainstream customers, who buy things when they want or need them, not because they're brand new.