Alltför ofta alltför svårt
6 januari 2004 | Ingen har kommenterat än
Gustav suktar efter nya prylar och länkar till artikeln om eBay som ekonomisk indikator.
Blind Höna har posten som är den felande länken mellan dessa två:
en artikel i New York Times om varför nya elektroniska prylar så ofta hamnar på eBay:
”Gadgets bought and barely used are the technology world’s equivalent of exercise equipment. Often purchased in a well-intentioned bout of self-improvement, they are opened, used once or twice, then abandoned. Sometimes they never make it out of the box.
On eBay — originally established as an online flea market for selling used goods — a recent search for ’like new’ consumer electronics products yielded 30,000 items.
People acquire these things — hand-held personal digital assistants, flatbed scanners, compact disc copiers and a host of other objects — because they promise to make life more efficient, more fun (…) But many such products are simply too complicated for their own good. And all too often, the buyers find that they cannot really change their lives just by acquiring something new and different.
NY Times:
Seductive Electronic Gadgets Are Soon Forgotten, 15 oktober 2003
Att det är för svårt att få prylarna att fungera är också en av anledningarna:
”For her birthday a few years ago, Ann Kirschner, an educational consultant and long-distance runner in New York, was given an exercise gadget that was supposed to help her prepare for a coming marathon.
Hooked to her belt, she was told, it would monitor her running. The gadget could then be connected to a computer and, via an Internet connection, it would offer customized training advice.
’It sounded wonderful but the setup was byzantine,’ Ms. Kirschner said, emphasizing that this was a charitable description of the problems she had getting it to work. (…)
Not long after buying a Webcam that eventually ended up back in its box, Dr. Julie Marcuse, 57, a psychoanalyst in Manhattan bought a scanner. That, too, was a bust. The scanner software created a series of conflicts with other software on her computer. She gave it away.
’I think we’re usually pursuing a fantasy of empowerment when we buy these things,’ Dr. Marcuse said.
Asked why people have trouble learning to be more wary, Dr. Marcuse referred to ”an endearing optimism” on the part of consumers. ’Hope springs eternal, you know.’
Jag måste förstås framhålla, att just Apples prylar (som Gustav suktar efter) till skillnad från de som beskrivs i artikeln oftast är föredömligt lätta att förstå sig på och installera. (Och att mitt liv skull bli bättre med en iPod behöver väl inte nämnas…)
Artikeln – med många roliga och träffande exempel – innehåller dessutom två för mig nya ord:
- NIB
- förkortning för ”new in box”, dvs. kvar i originalförpackningen
- serial acquirer
- tvångsmässig köpare
Kategori: Webb och IT
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