Thanks jbenfield, you have summarised my conclusion nicely. The feature hungry customer/consumer always provides the desire that fuels the exploitation. Like you, despite my mailing, I queue up for the next fix as a consumer.
However, in other fields of engineering, it is the job of the engineer to protect the consumer from the consequences of delivering their fix. I guess the analogy follows through, in that their position is to be the medic who flags up the dangers from substance abuse, and in a sensible society there is a legislature that backs that up with preventative action.
And the real point at the end is exactly as you describe - when the executives, sales and marketing staff hold the decision, the true engineers end up on the street, replaced by the wild west variety, outcome - high levels of stress to the consumer when their system gives them a bad trip.
Yet again, your very first scenario makes its point well. I concede that, in some cases, the "true engineer" is the cause of progress grinding to a halt as their pursuance of perfection, or more often of design preference, rather than design to specification, takes over. However, as the cars in the water with people swimming for the side depicts, there are two extremes, and there is a balance that's worth trying to achieve. For the reasons that we have already discussed, the balance seems to be tilted completely to one side in this field of life, and I don't believe we're ever going to get it level, as the tilting force so far outweighs any balancing force that could ever be applied.
Incidentally zupobaloop, it's so refreshing to be able to read intelligent debate.
Discussion on:
Message 10 of 1
The best of ZDNet, delivered
ZDNet Newsletters
Get the best of ZDNet delivered straight to your inbox
