Our Growing Dependency on Mass Mediocrity

"The state of the art is whatever Microsoft saystech product. And people accepted it. Today, OS
it is."2 is all but forgotten and Windows dominates the
- Bryce's LawPC world.
INTRODUCTIONMicrosoft has used similar tactics in marketing
Have you ever been looking through aproducts that compete with Lotus, Real,
mega-hardware store/garden shop and not beenTurbotax, and Adobe. Basically, their initial offering
able to find precisely what you are looking for?can be described as primitive at best but it is sold
Instead, you settle for something else which youfor next to nothing (thereby setting the hook for
take home, try it, and regret having purchased.the consumer). They then issue subsequent
Instead of returning it though, you think it is notreleases of the product at ever-increasing prices
worth your time and throw it in thegarbage. Notuntil they dominate the market. I would wager
only is the exact merchandise not available,you that Microsoft's research and development
merchants even go so far as to make the itembudget (against gross sales) percentage-wise is
difficult to return in order to discourage you fromvastly lower than theircompetitors. No, their forte
doing so. Even if you do, there is a penalty feeis shrewd marketing to the middle class and
associated with it. You're stuck and you learn tocontrolling its "mindshare." Windows, therefore, is
live with it.an excellent example of a product tailored to the
There is a growing trend to accept second classmiddle class. It is not necessarily state of the art,
workmanship. For example, it is no longer ait is what the general public perceives as state of
surprise to us if something doesn't work properlythe art.
or is late in delivery. Instead of finding itAs an aside, to this day, I still prefer the reliability
intolerable, we simply accept it. And this is theand performance of my OS/2 machines over
mindset most businesses are hoping for.Windows.
Understand this, it is the middle class that fuels aWe see similar instances of manipulating the public
country's economy. It is the middle class thatin other areas as well, from everything from cell
purchases the products and services en masse.phones to automobiles. Foreign manufacturers
As such, the middle class is the impetus for masshave taken notice as well. Whereas Japanese and
production. By carefully manipulating the wants,German cars were once considered a joke, they
desires and purchasing attitudes of the middlenow dominate the industry.
class, merchants andmanufacturers can maximizeWe also see this same phenomenon in the
their profit margins. They also know it is notinformation systems of our companies. System
necessary to sell a high quality product (whichhiccups are commonplace, as are project cost
adds to costs) but, instead, simply offers whatand schedule overruns. So much so, that the end
the public will accept.user community hasn't just lost confidence in the
Years ago, when we purchased something, weIT development staff, they expect such problems
expected it to be durable and work according toto occur.
expectations. We no longer think this way. This isA lot of this can be blamed on the decline of
why manufacturers carefully build in plannedcraftsmanship over the years, but more
obsolescence into their products. They don't wantimportantly, the consumer has been conditioned
you to buy it once, they want you to buy it overto accept screw-ups.
and over again.For example,
STATE OF THE ART?- People ACCEPT inferior workmanship; we no
I laugh when I hear people bragging they havelonger have high expectations.
the latest from Microsoft. They honestly believe it- People ACCEPT delays and cost overruns.
is the best that money can buy. But is it really?- People EXPECT products not to have a long life
Let me give you an example. Back in the 1990's,cycle.
IBM introduced its OS/2 operating system for the- People ACCEPT shoddy service (heck, we'll even
PC platform. Frankly, OS/2 was years ahead oftip people for bad service).
itself. Not only did it have a fine Graphical UserIn other words, the intolerable is now tolerable
Interface (with a true object oriented desktop), itand business is counting on the middle class
also included preemptive multitasking, crashaccepting mediocrity. Is it that we no longer know
protection, a vastly superior file managementhow to make durable goods anymore or do we
system, multimedia, Internet access, Javanot want to?
support, etc., etc.CONCLUSION
Microsoft, on the other hand, offered WindowsAs we should all know by now, business caters to
3.x which provided a simple Graphical Userthe middle class. And they spend a ton of money
Interface for DOS (which most people were usingon research to know precisely what the public
at the time). Over time, enhancements werewants and how they perceive things. More
added and the product was superseded by newerimportantly, they have subliminally brainwashed
versions entitled Windows 95/NT/98/ME/2000the public's perceptions over the years whereby
XP, all at ever-escalating prices.our search for excellence hasbeen supplanted by
Whereas consumers perceived OS/2 as a radicalthe acceptance of mediocrity. Consider this, we
departure from their DOS environment, Windowsnow live in an age of electronic communications
appeared less threatening and affordable. In(cell phones, faxes, the Internet), but does
reality, people have paid Microsoft more thananyone take the time to express their outrage?
quadruple for Windows than what they wouldFar less than you might think.
have paid IBM for OS/2. But Microsoft's forte is inLike it or not, we are being conditioned to accept
marketing where they carefully spoon-fed theirmediocrity and are becoming more dependent on
product to the public in smaller mouthfuls andit each passing day. It seems the more high-tech
captured the "mindshare" of the middle class. Evenwe go, the more problems we encounter, and the
whenlower our expectations get.
Windows started hiccupping errors, people wereI guess misery loves company.
taught that this was to be expected from a high