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Posts: 607 | Thanked: 450 times | Joined on Sep 2009 @ Washington, DC
#9
Originally Posted by Johnx View Post
bocaJ and Cherrypie sum it up pretty well for me. Now having said that, I'll go off on a slight tangent. Somehow the word "consumer" always bothered me. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I really feel like it comes with a lot of preconceptions attached. It always seemed like it was weird to classify people as "consumers" when in fact lots of them are contributing to Maemo in some way or another. Or maybe they're just users right now, but in the right circumstances they might get motivated to learn to program, or do a translation, design a UI or even just help others. I can't help but feel like this constant chrous of "consumers this" "consumers that" is selling people short and setting low expectations for them. I really don't know what to call them instead of "consumers" though. I've been thinking about a couple terms, but I think the most catchy one I've come up with is "people." Sorry to be off topic in your thread, matthewcc, especially since I think it's a worthwhile discussion.

-John
I agree with the idea of bringing new people into the fold, but I worry about your use of the word "lots". I would hope that the N900 is successful enough that most of the people who buy it are not interested in participating in the community except to download software and ask questions.

That said, it does tie back to the issue. Most people who buy any product are interested in the choices available more than in the right to choose. If I'm looking for a desktop PC, almost all of them provide the right to choose. I can change the hard drive, the RAM, and even the CPU (not to mention adding various cards). However, most people (including myself for the most part) are interested in choice. They buy a computer that has the hard drive, RAM, and CPU they want and never open the case.

The right to choose is, in reality, just another item in the list of choices which any product offers or doesn't offer. If it's one of the only items, you have a problem. Nokia's product will suffer if all the product offers is potential.