Every industry has its dark side, the stuff that, at best, is embarrassing for the industry when it is exposed and, at worst, damages brands and loses customers. While many industries have been outted the computer industry is still off the public’s radar. So, what should consumers know about the computer industry’s soft underbelly?
We see the computer business from the inside: We know the players, the issues, the rumors, the scandals, and the wheeling and dealing. But on the outside, where the public and other business worlds intersect with the computer business, much of what goes on in our universe is mysterious, arcane and hidden. Often quite intentionally.
How much is hidden? Just think of conversations you’ve had with family, friends and neighbors who start out by asking you simple things, such as, “Why doesn’t X do Y?” (where X is a product they are struggling with, and Y is something that they think should be easy to achieve). You start to explain, and after a few minutes their eyes glaze over. It’s usually not that they’re stupid or lazy (though it must be admitted that sometimes that is the case), but rather because the computer industry is not a world they have any insight into.
To these people Bill Gates is just a really, really rich nerd who gives away a lot of money. Larry Ellison (if they have even heard of him) is another filthy rich guy with an insanely expensive yachting habit.
These outsiders think that hackers are somewhere out there and that they have nothing to do with them. They have no idea what digital privacy is all about and why they should be rioting in the streets about it. Viruses and Trojans? Someone else’s problems. Botnets? What?
Now every industry has its dark side, the stuff that, at best, is embarrassing for the industry when it is exposed and, at worst, damages brands and loses customers.
We’ve seen many consumer issues exposed since the middle of the last century. Consider the auto industry and Ralph Nader outing General Motors in his 1965 book Unsafe at Any Speed (if you haven’t seen the biography of Nader titled An Unreasonable Man, go rent it immediately from your local video store – the documentary shows just how remarkable Nader is).
But what’s interesting is the pace of exposures has been accelerating. For example, in the last couple of years there have been exposures of the practices of the food industry — everything from vegetable growing and handling through to how animals are raised and how poorly meat is inspected — to how pharmaceuticals are marketed and sold.
But what about the computer industry? How much of its dark side has been exposed and in any way that means something to the public? The answer is, hardly at all.
I’ve been wondering what it would take to lift the lid, to expose the soft underbelly of the computer business. What are the big issues that people outside of the computer business should really pay attention to? More important, if we believe that outsiders should be paying attention, then what will it take to clue them in?
Consider the fact that hardly any consumers are aware that they have been lied to by the computer industry repeatedly since the birth of the PC. Just look at how they have been told they have to update not only their applications but their hardware pretty much every year. They’ve been told computers are easy and that they’ll be more productive — they’ve unwittingly joined the digital shell game.
Every marketing pitch tells them they can get the latest for less than they paid last year and they need the latest because it will safeguard them from obsolescence and they’ll continue to get support. I don’t have to tell you that these are all fictions, but for the average consumer? They are in the weeds.
So, you tell me: What is the computer industry’s soft underbelly? What should consumers know?
