Techno-progress hits human wall

---by Micheal

You don't have to be a Luddite to be tired of software upgrades. Just when you've learned a program, the maker releases an upgrade. The perfect scheme for a guaranteed revenue stream -- perpetual ugrades.

The hitch with their perfect plan was us -- humans. We are becoming increasingly slow about jumping on the upgrade bandwagon. A case in point: Microsoft's over-hyped next upgrade of Windows: Vista. Bill's boys have been trying to whip up excitement for Vista, but the response has been tepid at best. Users are taking a cautious wait-and-see approach. (see CNET article on Vista woes) Some feel it's too much, and too late. (see eWeek's Is Windows Vista Out of Sync? )

One trouble (for Bill) is that many users are still using Windows 95 or 2000 or NT. They haven't even moved to XP yet. Why bother about Vista? That vast crowd of 800 million Windows users are proving very conservative. After all, upgrading is usually a royal pain. Will the next new widget be worth the pain? Perhaps not.

The old adage of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" seems to be kicking in. If Word 95 is working just fine for you, why upgrade? British futurist Ian Pearson said, "We've done 20 years of adding functionality, and 99 percent of that functionality isn't needed." Most people use only a tiny fraction of Microsoft Word's gazillion features. Why buy more features you probably won't use either?

One of the trends that futurists see is Simplicity (see Wired.com article on future tech trends) People are showing a growing fondness for simple devices that do well that one or two things they want done, without being encumbered with dozens of additional features they didn't want, or a fat obtuse user manual. A phone that makes calls. A calculator that does numbers. A music player that plays music. A camera that takes pictures.

Trouble is, the usual multi-use wonder-widgets seldom do all their functions very well. The latest wonder-phones take so-so pictures, play only a little music, make difficult calculators, etc. etc. Anyone who uses hand tools can tell you: a plain old screwdriver works far better than the screwdriver flip-out thingy in that 20-in-One multi-tool you got for Father's Day.

We're starting to realize that the same thing applies to computers and software. Simpler can be better. Less is more. This bodes ill for Bill's perpetual revenue scheme, of course, but that's not our problem.

The bottom line? Don't feel guilty about not upgrading. Just say 'no' to the lemming call for the next box of bloatware. Hundreds of thousands of Windows users are saying "no thanks" too.