Fleeting conversations about evil software
Occasionally I'm impressed that the right people are on Twitter at the right time to participate in a conversation, argument, or quip of mutual interest. These little meetings of the mind turn out to be very much in the moment, held together by mutual attention. Afterwards, the individual messages float apart and exist on their own, interspersed with bits of other conversations and status updates, disconnected from the original context. There is, to my knowledge, no place where any given conversation on Twitter can be replayed.
One of those evanescent conversations took place on Twitter today, but I've gone to the trouble to recreate it again after the fact. Hopefully I captured enough relevant bits to convey the gist.
(Read from the bottom up, click for larger version of the image. I'm @esjewett on Twitter.)
I see the sentiments expressed by @mkrigsman pop up quite often, and normally I'm not bothered by it. But I'm impressed by Michael Krigsman's level-headed analysis at his blog, so I felt the need to jump in and make a nuisance of myself.
My concern, as expressed on Twitter, is that we often (especially on the internet) attribute business decisions to some sort of ill-intent. This is especially true for decisions made by Microsoft, and increasingly Apple. Sometimes we go so far as to brand a company evil. This is a bit much in most situations. It's a questionable characterization when companies turn over private information to unjust regimes, but it's a little silly when we're talking about the delivery of iPod firmware updates. (Of course, silliness happens all the time on Twitter, and I suspect @mkrigsman was purposefully being a bit sensationalist to stimulate conversation. Mission accomplished!)
Frankly, on close examination it appears that most untoward behavior on the part of large organizations is the result of ineptitude rather than ill-intent. Most companies just can't get everything (or even most things) right. Even those that excel in a particular area, like Apple in user experience, are bound to miss every once in a while.
As always, we should try to give a charitable interpretation of actions. But where that fails, Hanlon's razor applies:
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
I usually like where Michael ends up his analyses, and this case was no different. We do indeed live in a complicated world.