[geeks] Odd uptick in spam...

[der Mouse]

>> The difference between Microsoft crapware and "better" systems like
>> VMS or even the BSDs is very hard to codify.
> The difference in the products, possibly.  The difference in the
> attitudes between MSFT's developers and the BSD/VMS developers isn't.

I'm perfectly willing to believe that.  But the original question was
"why is Microsoft still getting away with selling a product so
defective they'd've been laughed - or sued - out of the market long ago
in any other field" (paraphrasing rather liberally).  This question is
all about product quality, not producer attitude, and as such I think
it's a fair question, even if the only answers available are unhelpful.

Another part of the answer is that we don't have very much experience
(where "we" is pretty much any large subgroup of humanity) with people
"selling" "products" that are purely information.  We're still at a
stage more analogous to the anything-goes market that eventually
produced truth-in-advertising laws and the "caveat emptor" catchphrase
- but, as with so many other things, people expect to be able to import
attitudes and experience from other worlds into this one, which leads
them to expect something else when this world just ain't there yet.

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