Seriously, though, the reality of many goods and services isn't "once bitten, twice shy" but once bitten, forever a walking vampire of whatever system bit you. Buy a Nikon DSLR and a few Nikon lenses, it's a bit switch to move to Canon. You can replace the camera example with Mac/Windows, HDVD/Blue-Ray, VHS/Betamax, MiniDisc, DAT, and a long, long, list.
I'm not sure we need a separate bill of consumer rights, what I feel we need is human rights actually applied to products. But what's good about writing it in a list like that is that it brings it closer to home than human rights normally does. I agree with Dan that there are plenty of situations where you don't have a choice. It is almost impossible to live a normal life without a bank account, yet for much of what my bank offers me versus what they gouge, I'd keep my cash under the mattress (or the dog). Deregulated markets are never really truly deregulated and free markets are never entirely free. It's a dangerous illusion to think so. There is always a lot of tweaking, subsidising, withholding and ruling in the system and it's that which makes it usually go awry. If the global markets were truly 'free' China wouldn't have to re- and devalue it's currency every time the US dollar slid. For a shocker of a video of how misguided believing that illusion can be, check out Peter Schiff's predictions of the crash: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I0QN-FYkpw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=35669 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
