why we hate successful companies

[want_to_believe]

I recognized that a lot of people ...I would say , mostly the majority, hate all this big successful companies. It looks like everybody hate's McDonald, Microsoft or Cnn because it's " crap" . So, why are they so successful if no one likes them. Mc Donald servs millions of meals a day but no one ever goes there. CNN has only bad propaganda news and it is useless to watch them , but there website is on of the world 's top 10.Microsoft is so bad , crashes every minut , has no support , Bill Gates is an idiot ...but it runns on 80% of all PC's worldwide.  

[nosy]

It is called marketing.

[Joseph27]

Personally I eat at McDonalds sometimes - I watch CNN or visit the website sometimes and I always use Microsoft software.  

These 3 companies are icons of modernity - and indeed they are usually looked down on by anyone 'who's in the know' but frankly they all offer services that keys to our expectations.

McDonalds gives us instant food - without thinking whether or not we want it need it or like it we can find ourselves ordering a meal and being annoyed because they take 20 seconds longer than they should. Instant solution to personal hunger at lunch at a cheap price (taste ok and really bad for you)

CNN gives you instant answers to why 30 students got shot, why 3000 people were murdered why Indonesia had a particular riot at a particular time.  It is insightful insomuch as it has reporters on the ground doing the hard work.  It can be entertaining at times.

Microsoft - because every damn computer uses it and those who go for Linux or something else need computer degrees to install the damn things.  They may be more functional and less likely to crash but I dont have a spare 2 days to understand how to load a program on linux and nor do i have the time to search for a damn driver everytime I buy something new.  They market themselves very well and are very sharp at business.

On a different note its very nice to see Bill Gates working so closely with charities.  Its good to see him using his money.

[Burbage]

Well, I wouldn't equate CNN to MacDonalds or Microsoft, it doesn't have the same pervasive penetration into our everyday lives. I also don't think that we hate successful companies per se. Nobody particularly hates Coca-cola or Guiness.

Also, the idea of MacD being fast food hasn't made its way through to Singapore yet.

[Mabel]

Off topic sorry, but Burbage a lot of people do actually bear a grudge against Coca-Cola as a corporation. Mainly due to their history of racism.

Cheers
Mabel

[interloper]

Hi guys

don't know about "hate" - that's a pretty strong word. I did see last year a documentary on one of the longest courts cases in British history involving MacDonald's - how they apparently mislead (advertising), 'exploit' children in advertising too, have mislead the public about the true nutritional content of the buregrs & so on.....quite interesting.......

Since i saw that - i have not had a single burger since (from MacD). I've stuck to my guns.

Also in a sense, i feel that where MacD props up franchise's all over the world - the novelty wears off & this unhealthy food (frequency of eating coupled with the lack of nutritonal value = a 'lacking' diet. This Can lead to various disorders........)lingers in the mainstream diet of these people.

As mentioned earlier - it's all in the marketing & presentation of the product.

You're the ultimate salesperson if you can sell ice to the eskimos!

Guinness though - i have no objection to the proliferation or (personal) consumption of this fine beverage!  

that's my angle on a Fri afternoon
'loper

[Burbage]

Mabel,

OK, point taken. But the original post seemed to suggesting that these companies were disliked because they were successful, not because of indescretions. AS you point out, there are other reasons why coca cola might be disliked. Maybe I should have put it better.

Guinness also had a pretty damaging finance scandal that lowered them in everyone's estimation, but the success of their product has never really been attacked.

[tinky winky]

A number of the posts on this (and other) topics assume facts not in evidence.  This is intellectually dishonest.  The poster refers to a "fact" that we are all presummed to know, and therefore s/he takes the point.  Some of these "facts," though, just aren't true.

Sorry to pick on Mabel (I believe this was her point) because she's not especially guilty of this.  Plus, I've enjoyed reading her posts.  However, I happen to have personal knowledge of one of her "facts not in evidence."

I.E.  Coca Cola does NOT have a "history of racism."  In actual fact Coca Cola is very popular among many African Americans in its home city, Atlanta, because of its role in promoting the Civil Rights Movement in the South.  Atlanta escaped much of the violence and tragedy of the CRM, in part, due to the efforts of Coke.  To this day it spends a lot of money in promoting educational and cultural programs in the African American community.  

A recent lawsuit against the company charging "discriminatory employment practices" tarnished that reputation.  The suit was settled out of court, so there was no finding of fault.  They may have been guilty.  Or they may have wished to avoid just the sort of negative publicity that causes people in Singapore(!) to say they "have a history of racism"!  The suit was controversial, even among AAs.

I agree with the original poster's thesis that some people don't like big companies simply because they are big.  When did CNN stop being a "plucky little station that did what everyone said was impossible"  i.e. successfully program news all the time.  Now they're criticized for not having enough news?!  You do realize, don't you, that they have umpteen many channels with varying amounts of different kinds of news.  They have Headline news for people who WANT just the headlines.  They have an international service.  They have domestic channels.  For chrissakes, they even have an airport channel.  It's an extraordinary news organization that made news for the masses a commodity.  Surely that's a good thing.

We began to sner at them when they became so successful that we saw them everywhere.  Same with Starbucks ("Finally, descent coffee available in the most outlandish places, like suburbia!")  Familiarity breeds contempt.

Finally, some companies actually EARN contempt.  McDonald's hawks low nutrient, high calorie, fatty cardboard burgers to low-income families who end up getting a relatively costly meal (compared with home cooking) that has no veggetables.  Still, people obviously do buy.  Even Europeans who like to criticize "American imperialism."  (OH, the irony!  But that's another topic.)

Microsoft stole Apple's operating system, marketed an inferior version as its own, and used illegal, monopolistic tactics to cut competitors' products out of the marketplace.

Ack!  I'm getting wound up.  Sorry.

[want_to_believe]

the first windows based user interface was not developed by apple. It was developed at the PARC ( Palo Alto Research Center) , a research lab , owend by Xerox. Is was made to be a user interface for a big, high speed laser printer to manage print jobs and documents. Later on,  it was used as a user interface within  Xerox Global View Software and become the first of its kind on a pc . After this , Stefen Job's jumped in and made it a big success. Other things out of the Parc are for example , the mouse, the first lan , the fax machine , just to mention a few.

[Mabel]

Tinky Winky,Burbage, W2B et al,
I am sorry, I've tried to respond several times today but the brain power and cognitive skills required to reply (or to answer the original post in this thread)  are simply not in my possession today. So I am being very cheeky and reserving my place in the queue...watch this space  

Cheers
A very tired
Mabel
who will hoefully be a little more with it tomorrow....*yawn*

[Fat Bob]

I don't hate the sucessful companies, especially the ones you've mentioned.

I love MacyD's, use Microsoft products whenever I can, though must sya I prefer the BBC to CNN.

If it wasn't these guys doing it, it would either be someone else or total chaos.

[tinky winky]

I stand corrected re Microsoft/Apple/PARC's user interface system.  Just goes to show that conventional wisdom is not. (Wisdom, that is.)

Now to confess, I also think CNN is a little too commercial and I really loathe their determined trend toward "lifestyle" news to attract Generation Why.  But on the other hand, the BBC news can be a little dry.

I like the Newshour With Jim Lehrer (PBS).  (BTW, any way to get that there?  No, I suppose not.)

[Joseph27]

Microsoft may have embarked on questionable business tactics however and in all fairness to Bill Gates - they did what I would have done as well.  Bill Gates had an inferior product but he used his business sense and piggy backed his company onto IBM's.

Frankly Apple had a better system 20 years ago and should have been the success that IBM had in that initial stage.  But Apple is a crap company and that CEO of theirs has the strangest business sense(the initial IMAC is the only decent decision he has ever made).
 
Even now Apple has their new IMAC system - it looks good - does everything you need at a very competitive price but there is no support for their retail channel (hence no one pushes it).  In the end Apple assumes that their product is somehow super special and people want to spend all their money on it in spite of its downfalls. Frankly I dont want to sell Apple - I dont want the hassle and frankly their customer service is as bad as Dell's.  

Now Microsoft knows how to participate in the business world perfectly (even to the extent of putting more money into Bush's campaign than Gore's).  Their product is functional albeit delicate and prone to crashing.  It is easy to use - and easier to copy. Everyone has it. And their products become better and better and easier and easier.  

Go Bill

[nualum]

On a small detail . . . I always thought the fax machine was invented by Bell Labs. I didn't think PARC had anything to do with it. Consequently, I searched on the Web and saw that the first fax was invented by a Scot in about 1842. Subsequently, the concept and technology were refined by a German, a Frenchman, and the American who founded Western Electric--the research arm of which became Bell Labs.

As for people resenting big, successful corporations, I think the evidence is mixed. Who has strong feelings about GE? Dupont might be arguable, assuming that many people recognize the name. I imagine that few people has strong feelings about 3M (Minnesota Manufacturing and Mining)or Daimler-Benz or Sony, just to name a few. I think one element in whether people have any feelings at all about big companies is whether or not the company deals with retail customers directly.  

[want_to_believe]

nualum, as often , there are several stages of development in products. Xerox brought the first Fax to the market as Xerox Tele-Copier and also developed todays protocoll standart for the data transmission. This was done at the Parc. But of course , agree with You that there have been other, earlyer stages of deveolpement  

[This message has been edited by want_to_believe (edited 04-03-2002).]