Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 26th Sep 2006 15:56 UTC
A common heard question in the operating systems world is, 'if the alternatives to Windows are so much better, why aren't people en masse switching to them?' People come up with all sorts of answers to this question, but in fact, the social psychology world already has a fairly simple answer to this question. This answer also happens to actually explain why Zeta sold so well through the usually superficial television retail channel.
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Member since:
2006-01-06
To put it bluntly: stupid people are unable to process complicated messages.
No, that's arrogant BS being spewed by a technophile with a poor grasp on humanity. People understand implicitly that there are messages that they simply don't care about. Does that make them stupid? No, it makes them efficient. They don't waste time thinking about messages that have little value to them.
For example, people regularly travel on aircraft without understanding (or caring) whether the aircraft were made by Boeing or AirBus, the engines by Pratt-Whitney or McDonnell Douglas, etc. But there are very real differences between the aircraft (ie. amenities, comfort, performance, fuel-consumption, etc) that are well understood by domain experts. Should they care? No, of course not. They simply want to use the aircraft to get from one location to another. It's a tool, a means to an end. The minutia have little bearing on their lives.
Same deal with operating systems. The overwhelming majority of people get their OS installed when they buy their machines. They're not sitting in their parents' basements, dorm rooms, or geek headquarters, installing it themselves. So, an alternative is better? Big deal. It has to be not only significantly better -- in a tangible way, not just geekery -- but make a meaningful change in their lives; otherwise, they simply have no incentive to change.
Consequently, all about incentives for change. If there are insufficient incentives, then nobody changes. Linux and OS X, while good alternatives, aren't good enough for most people to justify the migration. Perhaps that will change over time. I'm skeptical. But only time will tell.