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Because in a cut and paste world, the
examples that are viewed most often become
the patterns by which large and irreversible
trends are created. Web code like any
other signal fed to the Big Amplifier takes
on a life of its own. Intellectuals believe
smart ideas shape the future; they are only
half right. The forces of acceptance
are much more aligned with what one learns
first, then what is accepted by desirable
others visibly and last what
is affordable initially. The web as a marketplace
of ideas and technologies is not as some
would have one believe, a wild wild west
of heroes and villains, the quick and the
dead; it is a street market akin to the
illicit
drug trade where habits become needs,
the witless become chic models for the
naive,
and the smell of slow rot mingles among the
flash of fresh cash and unlined faces
with strangely hazy eyes.
The more choices provided, the fewer the
sales. When faced with uncertainty
(the effect of lots of
hard-to-differentiate choices), most customers leave the
store without purchasing. Mammals
hesitate and any market that is broad
in choice but shallow in sales
evaporates. Eventually, the deepest of the
various pools begins to expand as a
rebranded product with a wave of
new and different merchandising for old and
proven but easily stolen
concepts. Customers are seldom
research analysts and the true origins
of products are not interesting to
them. What we do not vette in design,
every short cut we take in implementation
and certification becomes more
work to be done after the sale.
Customers don't see the process; they
see the wrappers and once purchased, they
defend the omissions and the
bugs because to do otherwise is to admit a
mistake.
Do you care who invented your blue
jeans? Do you buy based on style
or fit? Once the market says a
thing is true and worthwhile, most buy
without question. Fact and quality
only matters to the aware. Code frameworks
are in no way free of the effects of mass
marketing and the web has not
made the slightest bit of difference in
this; it has in fact, amplified it.
Awareness is hard work. Do you have
the time or the money?
Mediocrity is the name of the game, Michael, because excellence is too rare to acquire often and too
expensive to sell in mass markets.
len
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