November 16th, 2007
Friday Rant - It's new technology stupid, you should expect problems!
It’s a Friday again and that means time for another Friday Rant.
It bothers me how there’s a growing number of people who believe that early adopters of new technology products or services should not only expect problems, but should also make excuses for the product or service not meeting their needs because it’s new. The cry of “it’s new technology stupid, you should expect problems” seems to have become the default defense put forward by fanboys and apologists alike. I get this one thrown at me all the time. If you’ve ever been an early adopter you’re likely to have come across this yourself.
Don’t fall for it. It’s nothing more than a weasel excuse. Think about it. When you stood in line for hours to buy that shiny new gadget, did you get some kind of discount for being an early adopter? No. Did you know you were signing up to be a beta tester? No. Did the vendor make it clear to you that you were buying a sub-standard, untested, inferior product? Not likely.
But the fanboy defense is only part of the problem. A growing problem is that as it has become possible for companies to continually update product through software patches, driver updates and new firmware (which, don’t get me wrong, is a good thing), the pressure on companies to get things right has eased off considerably. The attitude has become one of “ship now, fix later,” and this is being made worse by the fact that some companies have a huge following of apologists who try to make out that this is the norm and that there’s nothing wrong with this. I’ve seen some shockingly bad products released on the market, some so bad that I really felt genuinely sorry for anyone who actually paid money to be an early adopter, yet the apologists flocked to its defense. If the buyer was lucky, the product was improved over time, if they were unlucky, they lost out. Think abou t it, would you live with having to continually update your new car or microwave oven or central heating system to fix bugs? No, most probably not, but you’re happy to put up with continual driver updates, software patches and firmware updates for your tech toys.
Another growing issue with this “ship now, fix later” attitude is that the pace of advancement is so great and the period between release and obsolescence so short that products can now be flawed for their entire life. If you’ve got an MP3 player or graphics card or some other bit of hardware or software that’s defective in some way, it’s entirely possible that it will never be fixed properly before you have to junk it and buy something new. Same goes for any new features that might be promised. Believe it when you see it.
The pace of change is so great that, like it or not, we’ll all be early adopters soon.
Thoughts? And remember, since it’s a Friday, you can vent your spleen about anything tech-related that annoys you!
Adrian is a technology journalist and author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology. He also runs a popular blog called The PC Doctor. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations
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