>That's not true. It is a free choice and a free market but most people are >not equipped to make an informed choice.
If "most people are not equipped to make an informed choice" it is almost by definition "not a free market." If people make a decision based on coercion and fear it is not a free market. Some years ago I had a client that was given a free choice and embarked on an extensive study. They collected data about the brands, what people were doing, and interviewed many similar organizations. Then they had an interesting epiphany that stopped their research cold. The group manager told me "Suddenly we realized that everyone who has a free choice was using a Mac." The selection of a PC is too often driven by fear and coercion. Even today I have clients using Macs who are not allowed to connect to the corporate LAN because "Macs are insecure" or "Macs are incompatable" or simply "we don't support those." People are told that if they get Macs they won't be able to read anyone else's files and won't be able to collaborate with anyone else at work or "we won't be able to help you". Now someone making an informed choice would know the above is untrue, but as you wrote "most people are not equipped to make an informed choice" and hence are coerced into getting the inferior product for completely wrong reasons. This is not a free market. Another group of PC buyers making technically uninformed choices are thise with low self esteem. They buy PCs because "that is the standard" -- they want inclusion into the group. Buying a PC affirms this. This is not a free market. This is the brilliance of Apple "I'm a Mac - I'm a PC" ads. The consistent message in all these ads is that people who buy PCs are dorks. The ads are deliberately snarky to put psychological pressure on these low self esteem buyers. The ads say "You don't want to be a part of that group." MS's new "I'm a PC" campaign is puzzling to the technically informed, but is a direct response to Apple's psychological pressure on low self esteem buyers. It says "Look at all these people who have PCs and are not dorks." That is why these people are saying things like "and I wear glasses" or "and I'm very scared." Ads like this demonstrate that this is not a free market P.S. Has anyone else seen David Pogue's funny Punch and Judy style iPod vs Zune vblog? http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=ca047c12e105091272b2660a84fc218433fa5 4bd His conclusion is that features don't count, Zune is a loser because everybody buys iPods. However he lists enough iPod features to bury the Zune on that count too. (See I got back to the topic!) ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
