Re:First Real Post (jk) (Score 1)

Ah, but the 1% that did would be quality stuff. The interesting question is, would we be better off with a smaller quantity of software, with higher quality?

Yes.

My 50+ year old industrial design co-workers and myself use a *nix workstation and highend design software. Yes, it's expensive and has a plain GUI, but it rarely (99%) bugs out on us.

On the other hand we also have a windows box beside our workstations for msoffice. About 5 times a day, a co-worker will bellow "Hey Mark! Why did Word do this? What does this blue screen mean? How do use this new email program?" I end up trying to setting thier preferences on a program to get rid of the bells and whistles. They don't want it and they don't need it.

All these people want is to be able to do thier jobs without a big ritual or having to take a weeks worth of training for the latest-greatest. Sure new way the speed up a repetative task is great and they go for it.

I think alot of software companies have missed the boat with the average home user:

If it's too complicated, they won't use it.

I'm not saying that they're dumb, they just have better things to do with thier lives than deal with something that's too hard to use.