Jesus Diaz writes in Gizmodo that he's had enough of bad technology and is calling for a revolution against half-baked products that are released to the public - and are forever in beta.
He writes:
... We (us - the consumers and end-users) have surrendered in the name of progress and marketing and product cycles and consumerism. Maybe those are good reasons, I don't know, but looking at the past, it feels like we are being conned. Deceived because the manufacturers of electronic products have taken our desire to progress faster and even embrace the web beta culture as an excuse to rush things to market, to blatantly admit bugs and the rushed features sets and sell the patches as upgrades.
I can't really blame him for that. I myself dread the yellow "chevron"-like icon on the bottom right of my Windows screen: it means I have to download more updates for my Windows OS and well, be unproductive for awhile and grab some coffee.
Windows isn't the only that's got this forever-in-beta thing going on. My Mac OS-X also gets updated at least once in a month. iTunes, for example, gets updated with things for the iPhone - something that I don't have and have no desire of buying any time soon (unless they come up with some stronger, more compelling reason for me to buy). QuickTime Player which I rarely use also gets updated pretty regularly.
Forever in beta: Is it really all that bad?
Granted that the yellow-chevron of Windows or Mac's installers continuous exhortations to "System Update needs your attention" is an indication of imperfections, it is also - for me - an indication of continuous evolution.
The thing is, things change so fast in our world these days. There's always some engineer or software wizard thinking how she could improve on something in an existing product. True, they should have thought about this before releasing the product - but then again, we don't live in a perfect world.
"Forever in beta" or "constantly updating" is actually something that I would welcome. I don't think it is a sign of mediocrity - rather, I see it as a sign of constant - and consistent evolution.
Of course, there are downsides to it.
But I think given the fast pace of changes that are happening - and the constant threats of viruses and hackers and all that - we don't have a choice.
Rolling out a product - particularly a software product - in a perfect state is a great thing, but I don't think it's realistic.
So I welcome "forever in beta" and "constantly in evolution".
At least, those yellow-chevrons on my Windows OS do indicate I got more time to have some coffee in the morning before I dive into my emails and the day's tasks.
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