Modern technology companies are often faced with the prospect of making a lot of money, but at the cost of a technical betrayal of their customers. That’s not surprising. What is surprising is that they become oblivious to the consequences as they create a culture of technical desperadoes.
Two articles on Monday caught my attention in this regard. In the first story, “Former FCC Commissioner Condemns iPhone Hacking,” a former FCC Commissioner, Harold Furchtgott-Roth, accused hackers of breaching Apple’s and AT&T’s intellectual property and interfering with these companies’ exclusivity contract. The suggestion was made that moral standards of hackers and those who lionize them have declined.
What is the true source of this so-called moral degradation? I believe it is executives who are hell-bent on a fast buck at the cost of technical betrayal of the consumer.
In support, I present the second story from yesterday, “Industry Observer Alarmed by Paramount’s Blu-ray Decision,” in which Paramount was roundly condemned abandoning their commitment to Blu-ray, striking an agreement with the HD DVD camp that led to great financial benefit, and which led them to “lower the bar for acceptable behavior to customers,” according to the editorial referenced.
Entertainment and consumer electronics companies want very much for their customers to be caught up in a fervor for their products and for themselves to become correspondingly wealthy and successful. Unfortunaly, occasions arise when executives face an ethical dilemma. They are faced with a radical change in their course as a reaction to a technological disruption or threat that requires an abrupt, even brutal change in the relationship they have with their customers. In the process of making that decision, they exercise judgment and set an ethical tone for themselves and their company that, in this Internet age, percolates swiftly though the customer base. Often, the decision requires a choice between modest success or great success combined with technical betrayal of the customer.
The entire high technology consumer industry is often noted for its fine print, quickly changing standards, camouflaged absence of key features on products that are shipped prematurely, onerous licensing agreements, and attempts revise customer agreements without notifying the customer.
Customers are exposed to these betrayals on a frequent basis.
The customer’s tolerance for technical betrayal is similar to human allergies. Some people have small tolerances, or “buckets,” and some have large buckets, depending on their DNA. When the bucket overflows, there’s a reaction. For example, some people, allergic to milk products, can have a little cheese for lunch, maybe a glass of milk, but that ice cream for dinner overflows their bucket. Then they have a reaction.
Some executives are tempted to focus only on their own company, their own problems and opportunities. However, out here in consumer-land, people have lots of companies to deal with, and the little bit of betrayal they get from each and every company adds up and overflows their buckets.
By and by, customers feel a certain sense of abuse, and that leads to various kinds of technological push back. Customers have, at their disposal, all kinds of tools, made available both legally and illegally, that allow them to fight back when they feel betrayed. What’s becoming clear is that some companies are out of touch with their customers and don’t have a feel for how betrayed many feel and the ensuing rationalizations.
The bottom line is that a callous exercise of technological betrayal has an immediate impact on well-connected customers. In contrast, protected by law, attorneys, contracts and fenced in buildings, some executives believe that whatever makes big bucks is just fine.
Like it or not, corporate misbehavior in a technological culture society does set the tone, and suggesting that push back is the result of the customer’s decline in moral values, as Mr. Furchtgott-Roth did, just doesn’t ring true.
I’m not saying that violating trade secret, U.S. copyright and intellectual property laws is the remedy. What I’m saying is that if companies want their customers to be happy, thrifty, and trustful, then the kinds of unchecked abuse illustrated by Paramount needs to be recognized as part of a cultural problem that creates technology desperadoes.