I don't know of cants think of a place in the digital marketplace
where a user is forced to use one product and doesnlt have a choice to
switch - I think of a bill of rights as a contract between the
governed and the government that is endowed with the monopoly over
coercion and the legal we of forced against those from which it
derives it power. The bill protects the governed most times against
the most aggregious abuses that always stem from individuals wielding
power (see Milgram). The only time I can see this as necessasary us in
the case of government sanctioned monopolies over resources or
government ownership of the means if production or provision of
resources where competion had been made illegal (like amtrak service
in the US). I don't know of this in the software industry in the us -
government sanctioned monopolies - but I am sure they exist. In every
other case, there is choice from operating systems to office suites to
pr0n. So in that case there is almost always choice - and the only one
preventing it is if your employer says you must use X to do a job -
and no bill of rights is going to prevent your employer from making
stupid decisions. Unfortunately, stupid ain't illegal.
will evanso
emotive architect &
hedonic designer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
617.281.1281
twitter: semanticwill
aim: semanticwill
gtalk: wkevans4
skype: semanticwill
_________________________
Sent via iPhone
On Nov 18, 2008, at 10:25 AM, Todd Zaki Warfel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
On Nov 17, 2008, at 6:24 PM, Dan Saffer wrote:
Yes, because we've seen how well an unregulated free market works
recently.
Users often cannot go elsewhere. [...] And even if you can switch,
it can be a difficult process.
The Users Rights would be for those who don't have a choice.
I'm a firm believer in capitalism, free markets, and freedom of
choice. I'd love for free markets to work, but that would require
all people to have honor, integrity, and a sense of sympathy for our
fellow man. Unfortunately, one bad apple can ruin the bunch.
Balance trumps idealism in my book. We need a balance between free
market and regulation.
Too much regulation has shown to produce oppression and a socialist
welfare state, which creates dependency and reduces innovation. Look
at what Six Sigma did to 3M. A company known for innovation didn't
release an innovative product in 6 years.
But the reverse is also true. Completely unregulated markets have
been shown to produce excessive greed. Look at the executives of the
large insurance and financial companies in the US.
If we were all machines, than either of these two extremes would
work. The face is that we're human. And as humans we have certain
desires and needs, like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
While we share similar categories of desires and needs, our
individual definitions of what qualifies those items is different.
If it was always about choice, then fewer people would be using
Windows and more people would be using Macs. Detroit wouldn't be in
such a shambles.
In short, we're human, which is why theoretical ideologies often
fail. Humans can are predictably unpredictable. And systems of
balance work better than extremes.
Cheers!
Todd Zaki Warfel
President, Design Researcher
Messagefirst | Designing Information. Beautifully.
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In practice, they are not.
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