At 03:13 ìì 2/2/2001, you wrote:
>Don't denigrate people who don't buy new software and hardware. We can still
>learn from them, if only to discover why they don't. With a bit of luck we
>may learn what to produce to start them buying again. Last year a black
>box/gold card QDOS user upgraded to the pointer environment so that he could
>use QL-2-PC Transfer. It was the first QL product he had bought in years,
>but he needed it so that he could send a book he had written to the
>publishers.
>
>I also know there are people who live on low incomes and use the QL because
>it gives them a cheap way of computing. A subscription to QL Today, for
>example, would be half of the income an unemployed or sick person is allowed
>per week in state benefits in the UK after deduction of accommodation costs.
>This is one of the reasons that I have made some Just Words! programs
>freeware. Mind you it is not totally altruistic. It is also effective
>advertising.
Oh don't get me wrong. I blame nobody and I regard noone as "inferior" per
se. Especially people with financial problems. They do have just as much
right in computing as anybody. However my point is that they are not the
force that drives evolution. They are not buying and of course traders do
not sell to them.It is new users and users that "pour" money in that will
drive a platform not users that have no financial contribution in a
perfectly normal financial function such as trade. Marcel doesn't make QPC
for people that won't buy it and of course he doesn't get feedback from
them since they don't have it :-) (sic!)
The problem IMHO is that in the name of a compatibility issue which
actually ceased to exist the moment TT released SMSQ we look back and not
ahead. The more we look back... the more the train will be away from the
station. And we'll never board it.
Nuff said (as my American Friends say)
Phoebus
