Wraith wrote:proudfoot wrote:Had any of these people used Vista before?
It's interesting. Predictable, but interesting.
I would assume they probably hadn't, which is why they didn't know that it WAS Vista, but that's really the point; that so much of Vista's negative buzz comes from people who have never used it and really don't know that much about it. It's always "well, I heard..." and it goes from one person to another, snowballs out of control, and eventually reaches the point where it starts influencing people who really should know better.
Form of: a wall of text!
Word of mouth is important. Everyone makes some purchasing decisions based on word of mouth. I'm proud to say I make a lot of purchasing decisions based on a combination of word of mouth and consumer reports.
Let's imagine that instead of an operating system, Vista was a toaster. Now, I have $50 to spend on a toaster, that's my whole toaster budget. I've had an XP toaster for a while, but the new Vista one is out. It's very shiny and has all sorts of awesome custom settings. I ask around if anyone has tried one.
One of my friends has tried a Vista toaster. They tell me that it worked great for the first few weeks, then they tried cooking frozen waffles. Every time, the bottom left corner would burn. I ask other people who have bought toasters, and the ones who don't eat waffles say it's a great toaster. But most of the people who use the toaster for waffles say it doesn't work very well. And I hear scattered reports of other problems... problems I never had with my XP toaster. I decide reliability is more important, and... without ever trying a Vista toaster... I buy an XP one.
Oh no! I've been influenced by negative buzz! I shouldn't judge the Vista toaster until I've tried it myself!
Vista isn't free, and you can't return it for a full refund if you're unhappy with it. It may take someone days, weeks, or months to finally find the thing that makes Vista unusable for them. So though they haven't tried it themselves, smart shoppers DO listen to word-of-mouth. Because trying Vista and seeing if it's for you
isn't free.
Now remember, if I'd bought a vista toaster, I probably would have been impressed by its great design and the fact that it made toast extremely well. It wouldn't have been until the odd day that I decided I wanted waffles that I would have learned it didn't work right for waffles. So if someone sat me down with both toasters and a loaf of bread (keeping all waffles out of the area) I would probably have objectively judged the Vista toaster as better.
Now, I also have limited headspace. Imagine that, instead of remembering the waffle problem, I just remembered that Vista toasters had SOME problem, and I probably shouldn't buy one. Now I'm not only not trying it, I can't remember why! And yet... not buying it is still the better consumer decision, despite the fact that I'm making it without knowing 100% what I'm talking about.
Vista has bad word of mouth because a large number of people had bad experiences with it upon release. It may be better now, just as Postal may be a better movie than Alone in the Dark. I could possibly even watch the first five minutes of Postal (which are actually supposed to be awesome) and say "wow, that's actually pretty good."
I have no respect for people who are "proud to have never seen an Uwe Boll" movie. But that's not what we're dealing with here. I see the situation more as someone wandering to the movies to see what's playing. Their choices are Postal and Iron Man. One of these movies is getting their $10. The person says "Hmm. I've heard Uwe Boll's movies aren't very good. I'm going to spend my $10 on Iron Man instead, which I've heard is goddam fantastic."
Should that person know better than to listen to the negative buzz Mr Boll has gotten? I'd say that to suggest such a thing is condescending. And if someone listened to your suggestion to not consider word of mouth when picking between those movies, he might have wasted his entertainment movie on a barely adequate movie instead of a good one.
If someone asked me to rate how good I thought Postal would be on a scale of 1-10, I would probably say "4." This isn't me 'hating on it without adequate reason,' it's me making a decision based on word of mouth and reviews I've read, and I don't think it's any more worthy of bile or criticism than any of the hundred times a day I pick one item over another, be it detergent or candy or motor oil or television or comic books.
Microsoft messed up, and released a product that was not ready for prime time. This resulted in a lot of people having complaints, and spreading bad word of mouth. I firmly believe that the word of mouth in this case was entirely justified, as it would have been in my waffle example, and as it is in the case of Boll's movies.
The fact that they're using such an insulting and unscientific tactic and labeling it an "experiment" actually makes me more confident that the negative word of mouth was justified. Experiments need a control, the only times it is acceptable to omit one is when having a control would be impossible or unethical.
Deception is deception, and that is all this "Mojave" campaign is. I will argue that Microsoft is firmly in the wrong here, not the people who dislike Vista due to its negative word of mouth.
I just really really hate the abuse of science, and pseudoscience. Microsoft SHOULD be smarter than this, better than this. I hope I never see shenanigans like this from Google.