InformationWeek: In Defense Of Complaining
Even weirder is the idea that companies shouldn’t be criticized because in a market, you should just take your business elsewhere. Free markets thrive on good information. For a market to function, customers need to have good information about which goods are worth buying and which ones should be avoided — that’s why we complain in public, to help companies make better decisions.
When corporate apologists say, “Well, it’s a free market, shut up and buy someone else’s product,” or “Well, it’s a free market, they’re a commercial company, they have to make a profit,” they’re not really talking about a free market at all.
They’re asking for the kind of market where companies get treated like charities (at best) or like promising toddlers. If you’re in business to turn a profit, you’d better make a product we want to buy. If your partners won’t let you do that, get better partners, or a better line of work. It’s not our responsibility to buy your halt, lame products because you can’t do a better job.
— via Boing Boing Blog
Traditionally, complaints are sometimes an effective method for influencing corporate decisions. Does restating “complaints” as “negative feedback” resolve the inherent badness of complaining in general? What form of positive feedback can influence a megacorp?
