[conspire] Re: conspire Digest, Vol 22, Issue 11

[bruce coston]

looks like a logic error to me, given that FUD
marketing only works on the left hand tail what you
say is possibly true but you may need those customers
to fund product development. More likely your
marketing is stuck trying to dig out of a massively
ingrained lie and people won't buy from your customers
because everyone with corporate power "knows" your
stuff is awful. example; if i'm volkswagen and buying
from supplier B scares away customers, i will find a
way to stop buying from B. Never overestimate the
competence of those in charge, even if they know
something they may be too busy to make sure and just
go with what feels right. So you could easily wind up
with a niche market of only the smartest 2% of
customers who really know better all the way to the
top. sub-optimal equilibrium should be a standard
economics topic but seems to get neglected in favor of
the corporate shill.
> If your competitors engage in FUD-based marketing
> that only works on the left-hand tail of the
> customer
> bell curve, they increase the average intelligence
> of your customers, and that should tend to make your
> products better.
> 
> So a possible corrolary to the law would be that
> products that have FUD directed against them tend to
> increase in quality.
> 
> That would mean that Wasabi Systems, with their
> "Instead of following the examples of other embedded
> vendors from Motorola to Sony to TiVo, who
> presumably
> have lawyers to check these things out, you should
> believe some scary anti-GPL hand-waving from the
> General Counsel of some rat-bag startup" marketing
> message, is actually doing the embedded Linux
> business
> a favor.


		
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