Does Nick Carr purposely misread things, or does he really miss the obvious? He calls Jeff Jarvis on the carpet for this post, which is a response to the equally clueless Amanda Chapel. Here's what Jeff wrote:

Chapel is disgusted by the whole Dell Hell affair and because of it she calls what I write the Communist Blogifesto and calls me “some malignant corporate subversive” (which, I suppose, beats “worm“).

Which is a response to this:

Jeff, you’ve crossed a line. You’re no longer a Newmark-like dis-intermediary hero set out to circumvent your former media bosses and radically improve a business. You are now sounding like some malignant corporate subversive. Listen to yourself: “behind me a mob with pitch forks and torches storming castle Dell;” “we are the bosses now;” “companies have the opportunity to hand over control to customers.” That’s not inspiring a "conversation" comrade; you’re yelling “fire” in a crowded peasant theatre.

Oh please. It's nothing like that at all. What Amanda seems to be upset about is simple: us "little people" don't have to take a complete lack of customer service lying down anymore. There's at least a possibility that we'll be heard now - and in the case of Dell, Jarvis was hardly the only one receiving sub-standard service (something Dell finally figured out).

Hey Amanda: Here's a clue (you certainly need one) - it's no longer safe to provide crappy service. A decade ago, you could get away with it. Now you can't. It's that simple. If you don't like that, then I'd guess that you don't much like this thing called "work". The proof that she doesn't get it - this:

As it relates to Dell, you think Michael Dell gives a shit about you. He doesn’t. He reports to the bank. He cares about Wall Street. I, the stockholder, am his main concern.

Well - here's the thing: when the management chain stops caring about the customer, then eventually, the shareholders feel the pinch in lower share value. Lower sales tend to lead to that. Amanda seems to think that there's no connection between the shareholders and the customers. What Jarvis is doing is pointing out that in fact - there is. To this, Amanda sticks her fingers in her ears and chants "la la la".

Meanwhile, Nick Carr, ever ready to get the simple stuff deeply wrong, praises the prancing idiot and shouts at the person making a reasonable point.

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