Do you care what your phone manufacturer thinks of you?

Sitting at work and just got a phone call from someone asking about a television.  We don’t normally deal with televisions here but what the customer said was relevant to me becoming pissed off and writing an article about bad consumerism.  Let me explain.  Customer calls in and has one requirement about the television.  He wants it to be a Samsung because he “heard it was the best.”  Now, I don’t want to pull out any Home Theater trolls that happen to be on our site but for the money he was spending he could have done a lot better than the Samsung he ended up with.  It’s about more than just the product too.  It’s about balls.  Giant, enormous, gravitational force producing balls that a company has to have when they charge you more money, knowing damn well their product doesn’t match up with the competition.  Let me help you through why companies like this don’t deserve your money.

They think you’re stupid.  It is really that simple.  The company sits down and starts designing this product and their internal monologue goes something like this; “So a whole bunch of people know who we are and perceive or product as high quality.  Why don’t we just charge more for that perception?”  Said company increases their product margin all based on things that have no measurable difference in product quality.  What they bank on is lazy consumerism.  A large portion of consumers don’t know how to begin comparing prices and features for electronics.  It’s not any one’s job but yours to make sure you get the most for you money.  In fact 9 times out of 10 it’s every one’s job to do the exact opposite.  From marketing campaigns disguised as “Research” to sales people the market is trickier and more complex than ever.  Hopefully we do a good job of weeding out the Cellular phone crap that exists here at Mobility Digest, despite our incendiary flare for literary ostentation.  However the fact that these companies think so little of us consumers incites a crazy sort of anger in me that is projected at both sleazy corporations and lazy consumers.  Without one the other could exist but the compounded efforts of stupid people with money and smart douche bags trying to take their money has equivocated into higher prices and stupid products with no major innovation.

Second is the issue I take with companies that dictate how their device will be used.  This is true of Apple and Microsoft is hopping on with the same approach.  I’m cool with having a dedicated app store that is the default way to get apps and content to the phone.  What I’m frustrated by is the lack of ability to expand and run whatever code I want.  I don’t make apps because I’m lazy and I hate programming with a burning passion.  It’s just too laborious.  Which is why I pay other people to do it for me, but sometimes it doesn’t work just right or could be drastically improved by some minor editing.  Should I have a Windows Phone or IOS phone these companies do not give me a factory option to do so.  I don’t see why these restrictions are present.  Let me set up a little thought experiment with you all to demonstrate how stupid this is.  You are your loved ones are stuck in a building with a bomb that’s connected to a laptop and the only other electronics you have is a consumer model Windows Phone 7 device.  Some one, let’s just say MacGyver or someone equally bad ass (although none truly exist)  was there and said “I need a mobile phone with a text editor and a usb cable to export it to this laptop.”  You would be screwed along with all your loved ones because you trusted Microsoft or Apple or whoever you want to insert that has superfluous draconian control standards for mobile electronics.  I’m not saying these companies can’t lay out some default standards for applications just like Windows handles things.  If it’s unrecognized or unsigned it asks you TWO times before they allow you to install it.  Why can’t their just be an option, like in Android, to sideload apps.  This is all I want and I want the company to have enough faith in people that kept the shoddy and highly technical operating system that was Windows Mobile afloat for so many years to give us that small grievance.  I probably won’t have much of a choice with AT&T taking a shit on every Android phone that comes through by disabeling this capability.  Am I asking too much?  Should people with the skills and knowledge to write code and create things for themselves have to pay a 100.00$ fee just to use a device they’ve already paid for once?  I don’t think so.  And all you jerks out there who can’t write apps or program that want to say “oh well how many people want to do that?”, screw you!  What kind of opressive and minority hating bigots do you have to be to deny rights to people based on nothing but the fact that they are the minority?!?

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