[sf-lug] Linux Hater's Blog

[Christian Einfeldt]

hi

On Tue, Jul 29, 2008 at 6:17 PM, JW <jmango at mail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 29, Bill Kendrick wrote:
>
>  > DAMN toothpaste makers and car manufacturers for giving me choice!!!
>  > ;)
>
> Bill, as a real newbie to Linux, may I offer my point of view?


jmango, thanks for your opinion.  We do really need and value new users'
opinions.


> Having
> tried several distributions, the real problem is inconsistency,
> flakiness, and reinventing the wheel. Why do we need to have so many
> interfaces that all do the same thing,


jmango has a point here.  I would like to recommend that the members of this
list please consider purchasing a copy of "The Paradox of Choice":

 Autonomy <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomy> and Freedom of
choice<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choice>are critical to our well
being <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well_being>, and choice is critical to
freedom and autonomy. Nonetheless, though modern
Americans<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States>have more choice
than any group of people ever has before, and thus,
presumably, more freedom and autonomy, we don't seem to be benefiting from
it psychologically.
 —quoted from Ch.5, "The Paradox of Choice", 2004

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paradox_of_Choice

Please also consider reading "The Political Brain"

http://www.thepoliticalbrain.com/videos.php

which posits that voters vote not for the candidate whose policies most
closely parallel the voter's own interests, but rather for the candidate
about whom they "feel good."

In selection of both candidates for office and products, consumers and
voters filter their choices based on _emotional_ factors first.
Intellectual factors don't appear as significant motivators until about item
number 11 on the list.

I submit that until we, the FOSS community come up with eye candy that is as
easy and compelling as the Mac, we will not break out of single digits _in
the US_ .  Maybe we will break out sooner in other countries, but not in the
US.  We really need to elevate our dialog to considering that the end user
is the "decider", not us, the geeks.  We need to educate ourselves on the
science of marketing, because it is every bit as empirical a science as is
computer science.  Ironically, as clumsy as Windows-using marketers appear
to us, so too do we appear willfully ingorant _if_ we ignore the hard
science that goes into shaping the way that consumer demand is channeled.

-- 
Christian Einfeldt,
Producer, The Digital Tipping Point
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