Computer users know of the contempt of many software companies for consumers. “Blame the end user” is the mantra of many a tech support staff. It’s great to see consumer protection bills introduced in Congress to warn the public of copy-cop schemes that could interfere with the usability of various kinds of products. Be interesting to see how this concept could affect, say, e-books in the future. Lest one doubt the need for precautions, consider a wonderful article by Lee Dembart in the International Herald Tribune, Companies fine-tune the art of fending off complaints. The first part:
PARIS–Years ago, the story goes, when people still traveled in Pullman sleeping cars, a passenger found a bedbug in his berth. He immediately wrote a letter to George M. Pullman, president of the Pullman’s Palace Car Company, informing him of this unhappy fact, and in reply he received a very apologetic letter from Pullman himself.
The company had never heard of such a thing, Pullman wrote, and as a result of the passenger’s experience, all of the sleeping cars were being pulled off the line and fumigated. The Pullman’s Palace Car Company was committed to providing its customers with the highest level of service, Pullman went on, and it would spare no expense in meeting that goal. Thank you for writing, he said, and if you ever have a similar problem–or any problem–do not hesitate to write again.
Enclosed with this letter, by accident, was the passenger’s original letter to Pullman, across the bottom of which the president had written, “Send this S.O.B. the bedbug letter.”
The Tribune article goes on to raise the rather reasonable question that Microsoft may take XP-related complaints about as seriously as AOL take spam reports. So would this apply to e-books–beyond problems with Microsoft Reader and variants thereof? Well, imagine 100 years from now when you’re trying to read an old format. Heck, for all we know, Microsoft might not even be around to play down end user complaints. Just about all the orignal members of the Dow index are gone. Simpy put, if we want e-books to be both readable and reliably preserved a century from now and beyond, we need a well-stocked national digital library system that would address these issues in a systematic way.
I know this article is dated (2003) but it really holds true even today that years ago if an end-user presented an issue to a company they would listen and take action. It almost seems like today that manufacturers, retailers and service are doing exactly what this article states and almost blaming the end-user. Accountability is something I think has been lost over the years and to do right by the end-user.