Compassionate corporations...yeah. Right. Pull the other one.
So Microsoft has proposed a way to repay the damages that it owes in the antitrust lawsuit brought against it by a collection of U.S. states. Let us donate computers and software to hundreds of low-income schools, they say. The money and time spent will be a punitive resource for our (great big huge) company, and the little people will benefit directly.
Let me translate it another way: Aw, please don’t throw me in that riverbed!
Never mind, for the moment, that this doesn’t address the causes of the antitrust suit. Set aside, just for kicks, the arguments that the money spent will not equal the damages set by the U.S. courts. What Microsoft is really getting is the mindshare of a new generation. Maybe they’ve figured that for whatever reasons, they can’t advance further in their FUD campaigns among middle and upper-class computer users because of a) market saturation and 2) too many people aware of what they’re doing. So off they go, hitting the one social strata that is at once the most rabidly protected and the most disregarded: kids. They know that human beings are creatures of habit. They know that, to most people, the computer is just a tool (which is all it should be…but that’s another essay entirely). They know that part of building brand loyalty is establishing habit and relying on complacency. Where better to start building patterns of loyalty than in the cradle?
You think it can’t happen? How do you think Philip Morris became one of the top-selling brands of cigarettes in the U.S.? Joe Camel. People don’t see computers or software as being damaging to children or adults, so parents won’t rise up and smite Microsoft (or any other tech company) for their behavior. And by hitting the lower classes, the Redmond Menace can look all compassionate and caring, make the middle class feel good about themselves, AND start the brainwashing.
Yiig?!??!?
Related entry: Isn’t Child Abuse Illegal (pt. 2)
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