What a coup Microsoft has pulled off.
After getting millions of people all over the world to shell out money for the sugar-frosted turd that was Windows Vista, here we are three years later at the Windows 7 launch, and Microsoft has people practically falling over themselves to pay more money so they don’t have to use Vista any more. And people are treating Microsoft like some sort of returning hero for this. How in the world are they getting away with it? “We charged you a lot of money for a broken piece of crap, and you’ve been suffering with it for three years, and now here’s a somewhat fixed version that isn’t quite so much a piece of crap, and you’ll pay us more money for it!” “Wow! Gee, thanks, Microsoft! You’re the greatest! We love you!” What the hell is going on here?
I mean, really. Would you buy anything else this way? Say you bought a car that was a lemon; nothing but trouble for three years. At the end of that three years, would you go back to that same dealer and buy the same model again, and be happy about the whole thing just because they had ironed out a few of the defects? “Wow, a Pacer! Gee, that’s so much better than this crappy Gremlin that’s been stalling in the middle of intersections for three years! What a wonderful favor you’re doing me to sell me this car at full sticker! No, I don’t want anything for my trade-in! Please perform anal sex on me right now! Here, I brought you some lube, but you don’t have to use it.”
Yet Microsoft gets away with this. They ship crap, and then when they ship something that isn’t quite so crap, this makes them heroes. It boggles the mind. How low is this bar set, when charging someone again to fix the problems you caused when you charged them the first time makes you Mr. Wonderful? And it isn’t the first time. They did this before, with XP after WinMe. I think they did it with MS-DOS, too, back in the day, although I can’t remember which version was which anymore. The point is that if you sell someone crap, it’s incomprehensible that you should be able to charge them again later to sell them non-crap.
Windows 7 should be a free upgrade to Vista. Any Vista version, from Home Basic to Ultimate, no matter where you got it. Microsoft has explicitly acknowledged that Windows 7 is what Vista should have been. In fact, they’re marketing it that way. Well, if that was what you should have shipped, better late than never; give it to the paying customers you promised it to three years ago.
And while we’re at it, I can’t believe it’s impossible to create an XP-to-Win7 upgrade. Microsoft absolutely knows people were avoiding Vista and sticking to XP, especially business customers. That’s why they rushed to get Windows 7 out the door. You’d think an upgrade edition would be a priority. But no, people are glad to wipe their machines and do a complete clean OS install just for the privilege of upgrading. I suppose that’s the result of being trained to think that periodic OS reinstalls are normal.
There’s so much hype about it right now that you’d think Windows 7 was the last word in operating systems, all problems gone, right? Well then, how about running it without virus protection for, oh, a day? Would you do that? You wouldn’t? Neither would I, because that teeny-tiny little security problem still exists in Windows 7. How about disk defragmentation? You want to try to run Windows 7 for a year without defragging? Neither would I. I could go on, but why? Everyone knows about all the problems, yet they’re all so happy that Microsoft fixed some of the regressions that happened between XP and Vista that no one even cares about the huge designed-in flaws that every version of Windows has, Windows 7 included.
Meanwhile the Linux desktop is quietly evolving, even as the Windows fan boys are crowing that Windows 7 will crush desktop Linux. No, guys, sorry, but it won’t. After the hoopla dies down, what you’re left with is still Windows, with all its inherent weaknesses. And Linux development is faster than Windows development. Desktop Linux had caught up with and surpassed XP three years ago when Vista was released; it’s arguably as good as Windows 7 today, and by the time Windows 8 comes along, desktop Linux will already be ahead of it. Good for Microsoft if they’ve improved something; they should. And it’ll probably buy them some time. But there’s no reason to think they can coast on a vast user base of inferior technology forever – even if they have currently convinced the users to be happy about being cheated.
It gets stranger. I’ve just read a Mac person mention that his Windows friends razzed him for having to pay the princely sum of 29 dollars for the Snow Leopard upgrade. Which is an entirely optional upgrade, since the old Leopard is a perfectly fine OS (unless you want to do development work in 64-bit); whereas the W7 upgrade is hardly optional, since Vista was, well, you said it. But these Windows people think they got the better deal. Manchurian Candidate, anyone?
Perhaps they’ve taken their cues from the health care industry. We all know about the 100,000 Americans a year who die from infections they contract while in the hospital. But what about the many more who don’t die? They get charged a second time to be cured of the iatrogenic illness, fleeced by the same institutions whose sloppy practices made them sick. It’s a brilliant business model. Why give excellent care when you can make a lot more money by not bothering? Why design an excellent operating system that would mean that most of your customers won’t need another one for a very long time?
As The Blessed Reverend in “The Loved One” thundered when confronted by the fact that his cemetery was filling up, “We’ve got to figure out some way to get those stiffs off my property.” It’s not about excellence. It’s about money. There’s a sucker born every minute.
Actually, the model that came to mind for me was religion. Put your life in Jesus’ hands, and when that doesn’t work, the answer is always more Jesus. And it makes people happy. But I didn’t want to turn this one into another atheist screed; I try not to mix my two main themes.
There’s no contrast, and the theme is unified: for religion is about money, and “more Jesus” is just one market-segment application (“more hospital” being another, “more Microsoft” being a third) of a universal business model that exploits the many cognition bugs in the human OS.
I guess I mixed in your other main theme by bringing up The Blessed Reverend, didn’t I? If you’ve never seen “The Loved One”, there is much in it to tickle an atheist’s funny bone.
[...] blogger puts Vista 7 into perspective as follows: After getting millions of people all over the world to shell out money for the [...]
I love Windows because it causes so much grief for jealous, immature Linux zealots. Grow up. Linux will NEVER be anything than a hobby for home users. Atheist blogger? Hah. You’ve replaced God with an OS, and it’s just as sad.
@Yonah
LOL troll
How have Microsoft managed to avoid a class action suite. If anyone brought such defective products to market that have cost so many clients so much money. Maybe clients should actually look at and analyse the real cost of using such a broken OS that should have been recalled and fixed (is it possible?).
Any financial loss (or any other loss for that matter) that can be attributed to vendor negligence should be recouped from the VENDOR (that’s what they really are folks). Just another vendor that is abusing it’s dominant market position to deploy defective products using an immoral cost/ownership structure
I wouldn’t mind seeing class-action suits, but I can guess what the defence would be: user error.
Indeed, we should always look at the real (lifetime) costs of using anything (or voting for anyone) rather than just the upfront ones. But the culture is short-termist because the people are. Human beings simply don’t process “throwing good money after bad” in the same way as they do the initial outlay. Were that not so, Vegas would go bust.
It would be easier for governments to go after MS for negligence, I think, but European governments don’t permit government functions to be carried on on Windows in the first place. Euro governments run on Linux. Especially the French, who fear that MS has incorporated back-doors for espionage or control. Maybe it has, too.
The EULA for Windows gives Microsoft all sorts of crazy rights to do what they want inside your computer. For example, it says that validation checks will periodically happen, initiated either by your copy of Windows or remotely by Microsoft; that Windows will download and install validation-related updates and software without notifying you; that it will report to Microsoft what it finds; that you are forbidden to circumvent this process; and that Microsoft can disable your system if it doesn’t like the results. So basically MS can install what they want, when they want, as long as they claim it’s for validation, and has the final say over whether you can continue to use your computer. And that’s just the validation clause. So yeah, I’d say the French have something to worry about; you don’t have control of your own computer if someone else can monkey with the software or lock you out of it.
[...] Let’s all be overjoyed about Windows 7 [...]
I heard something about this re XP, which caused me to hang on to my NT2000 as long as I could; I also heard that the EULA said that if you used the product to badmouth MS, then ET would phone home and they could reach through and turn you off. Urban-legend exaggeration, mayhap? The XP I later bought to game with does indeed have some validation crap that comes up on boot, calls itself “Windows Genuine Advantage” (to whom, eh?), but since this machine isn’t online, it has to content itself with bawling about us being in mortal danger from failure to update, you know the way they do……. AFAIK Apple puts very little effort into persecuting piracy; it seems to take the line, “Well, then don’t come to us and ask us to fix your pirated OS”.
I can see the French wondering just how naughty they would have to be before Redmond switches them off; how many times they have to vote against your military adventures, for instance. But the poodle British also run their government on Linux, so I’m told, for the same reason. Intelligence-pooling is one thing, keylogging another.
Let’s face it, we poodles may be scared of you, but that doesn’t mean we trust you to reward even abject sycophancy. Much the same sentiments as prevailed in the Warsaw Pact, I guess.
[...] http://www.dwasifar.com/?p=821 a few seconds ago from Gwibber [...]
It’s not just the threat of shut-off; it’s the security hole created by an OS that is designed to accept sub rosa updates and patches from an external source. Linux is transparent; you can see what it’s doing, look at the source code, whatever you want. Windows is a black box, and even if you credit Microsoft with all the good intentions in the world, it’s still a security risk for the user because of its design.
By the way, speaking of the French, someone picked up this entire blog post, translated it by hand into French, and has republished it in France, where it is making the rounds of the French free software and tech sites. I’m kind of jazzed about that.
[...] http://www.dwasifar.com/?p=821 a few seconds ago from web [...]
[...] Let’s all be overjoyed about Windows 7 [...]
[...] Article original (en anglais) [...]
[...] extent the Mac ecosystem, but it’s pretty mild criticism as I go. I’ve written far harsher posts on that subject. But for some reason this one is attracting some fairly vitriolic Windows [...]
I’m pretty much impressed with the stability of Windows 7. It is better than windows Vista which hogs my memory and cpu.;-`