It still surprises me that “the defaults” in life have the hold that they do.
I tried a lot of computer programs when I was younger and found WordPerfect the best word processor, and to this day I use it. In the early 1990s, it was the default. However, it got there through fair competition and being the best, and I had tried what was out there (Wordstar, Word). Today, Unicode handling aside, it does its work with the minimum of fuss, whereas you always feel you are fighting the program with Word, never knowing what styles it is going to use, and even when you tell it, it can still get it wrong. You spend just as much time correcting the program as you do writing, and for someone whose job includes writing each day, I can’t afford to be a Microsoft QC guy (one whose suggestions would be ignored anyway). Here’s the thing: 35 years later, Microsoft still hasn’t caught up. Instead, it’s shoehorned Copilot into it. Libre Office, instead of starting from a logical base (efficient workflow and an attractive UI) decided it would compete with Word, and it has some of that program’s worst excesses (look at the HTML code that comes with it when you go from Libre to a WordPress compose window, for example).
Ditto with email programs: Eudora was what my university issued me with in 1994 and its successor, Aurora, is what I use today. Not for want of trying everything else under the sun: Outlook, Thunderbird, and whatever new ones have popped up over the years. No one has caught up with Eudora with the level of customization we had with version 1 of the program 30 years ago. For my workflow, I like an inbox on the left and an outbox on the right, which Eudora allows me to have.
I know, Microsoft gave their programs away in the 1990s with Windows to have them become the defaults, but given that in big organizations, there are huge licensing fees involved, why haven’t the IT people taken a stand and say, ‘We’re not going with the defaults’? It took Trump and suspicion over US Big Tech for Europe to begin to consider alternatives, something which I was going on about when running for political office 15 years ago. Welcome to the 2010s, kids.
Similarly, cars are expensive and yet there are people who simply go with Toyota without thought when there are superior entries in almost every segment they play in. I don’t want a Yaris with a whiny transmission or a Corolla that does the impossible: it dulls its independent rear suspension for the sake of a default, inoffensive drive. Why did the engineers do that? You’ve engineered a nice, compact rear suspension that is technically superior to what many others offer—and then you turn it into lifeless sludge. In Manila, it looks like 90 per cent of people have bought a Toyota Vios, and there is barely any joy in car spotting there. In Taiwan, the Vios’s slogan is ‘Defy expectations’, which is properly deceptive.
Just yesterday I was talking to a Kia dealer principal to discover that the Tasman wasn’t doing that well versus the Ranger and Hilux, even though—having driven them—it’s the best one. But it doesn’t look like a Ranger, people say. Who cares? It looks tougher, it’s more reliable, more masculine (which I thought would appeal to the men who buy these), and it’s more capable and better priced. And it’s not a Ford, which has the image of being the most yeller of all car companies, quitting each segment they do well in and retreating like a defeated army, with the unstated objective of exiting the global top 10. Yet so many of us are too chicken to deviate from the norm and objectively think: this is better, I’ll spend my money here.
We complain of people being sheep but so many of us are, and I don’t know if it’s down to a lack of critical thinking, courage, or exposure to choices. Surely it can’t be a lack of time because there we are all in the same boat. We seem to be in some self-feeding loop of the wrong choices being locked in to our psyche because the wisdom of others isn’t getting in. In which case, Copilot and similar programs are perfect for our times because they contribute to self-feeding for those who don’t want to learn or think critically. The web now reflects this with “AI” articles doing the same: you’ll always be able to find something that agrees with you. YouTube is filled with fake videos with “AI” voiceovers that must make up the majority of what is uploaded on there now. We could all see this coming and Big Tech, as I said, rather than find ways to filter it out to encourage legitimate content, has allowed it, encouraged it, and even funds it.
The 42-year-old set of encyclopædias that my parents bought for me is looking exceptionally good right now for something with objective facts. Books are great. While you can whip those up with “AI”, fewer people do so. There were always books with bad conspiracy theories out there. But the good books outnumbered them, and still do. We need those positive stories from somewhere, to remind us that we can get and deserve the best, and there’s more to life than the defaults. I’d like us each to have the things that work for us the best—and the world then looks more diverse, more colourful, and hopefully we’re all happier knowing that we aren’t sheep.
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