Re: Anyone out there happy with Jfw 6.1?
- From: "Yardbird" <yardbird@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2005 10:42:03 -0700
Chris,
I think a lot of what you say in this message is really cogent, and that
your conjectures about the forgiving aspect of the "sentimentality" as you
call it, are pretty close. I'm always aware of a sort of undertone, a
ground note, of something (and I'm not excluding myself from this, please
note) of a kind of infantilized or regressive sort of abject gratitude for
the gift of access, coupled with a well of resentment for not feeling
adequatley served, the two feelings whirling and bumping against each other
in a continual dance of extravagant appreciation and bitter resentment.
I think that getting out of this psychological loop requires a lot of
insightfulness and vigilance, so it's actually a real challenge, not just an
awkward quirk on the part of many of us.
I'm sure something of this would be ameliorated if Freedom were to lower the
price of Jaws substantially, say, closer to $500 than $1000, and/or if more
blind computer users started to earn better incomes through whatever
vocations appealed to them.
However, I think that the issue is more at a core level of a conflict
between gratitude and a feeling of diminishment than it is about the money,
or at least the money alone.
anyway, thanks for taking the time to register your thoughtful reactions to
the current, continual complaints and arguments about the sufficiency of the
latest Jaws update. You've raised the level of discourse nicely in a way
that lightens the burden of all this discontent and all these
remonstrations, at least for me.
Daniel
.----- Original Message -----
From: "Christopher Bartlett" <cwbtt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, April 10, 2005 10:14 AM
Subject: Re: Anyone out there happy with Jfw 6.1?
Ok, let's cut through the sentiment here. Freedom Scientific is a
*business* that offers *products* to *customers*. Customers have a
legitimate expectation that when problems occur, those problems will be
addressed by the software provider, especially when the software is priced
so high that it requires either state funding or a significant investment
compared to the average blind person's income (anyone seen the most recent
employment statistics?) I, as a customer, do not give a hoot in Hades how
complex it is. They are the professionals. I was once a computer
softwared professional, so yes I appreciate the difficulties, but you know
what, that's their problem and it shouldn't be mine as a customer who pays
a big chunk of cash for their product.
There is a tendency among blind computer users to demand less of their
software providers than the general market. I don't know if this comes
from misplaced loyalty, "they produced something that made my computer
accessible, so I must overlook their glaring faults" or what, but I see it
across the board from basic access tech providers like FS and game
manufacturers. You expect less quality, excuse poor quality and get
annoyed when the more realistic among us express dissatisfaction. I don't
get it.
Oh, and using Microsoft as a comparison is rather like saying that polio is
slightly better than the black plague.
I say all this as someone who has owned JFW since 1999, and found a lot of
good in the application. I don't use WE and am not particularly interested
in the religious war that could spring from comparisons of their merits; I
have a limited budget and time to learn software, so I'll likely stick with
JFW. I've not encountered some of the problems.
But I do get bumfuzzled by the reflexive defensiveness of some of you
around FS and quality issues. It's almost as though you are afraid that if
we bitch too much, they will take our toys away. RElax guys, either they
stand or they fall, and it'll be on the quality of their product, not the
complaints of denizens of this list.
Chris Bartlett
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