Scoble is right about this - most people don't have a visceral hatred of MS:

Ryan Stewart notices something that I notice too. Outside of the tech world there isn’t the hatred of Microsoft that exists on some blogs. Normal people don’t care that Vista was two years late. They aren’t like Chris Pirillo and won’t notice that some of the UI isn’t consistent.

They’ll just see the photos on their friend’s Xbox and say “I want that.”

On the other hand, an awful lot of them are like my wife's cousin and my father in law. My father in law is no dummy - he built his own machine. However, every time my brother in law visits, there's a good multi-hour session of "get the spy-ware (etc) off the machine" in store. When I took my daughter to visit her cousin last year, that's what I did with their computer.

It's not like I'm the only one with that experience, either - get a few technically oriented people together, and ask them about their friend's computers - unless they own Macs, you get a universal piss and moan session.

There's worse to come with Vista, too. Let's even posit that it is more secure, and does eliminate most of the last decade's worst bug hunts (a big assumption, I'll admit). Let's say instead that you want to do something simple, like pop a DVD (legally owned) into your computer's drive and watch it on your existing monitor.

Whoops - is that DRM that's telling you you're a thief, and you can't watch your own stuff? Yeah, that'll go over really well with the non-tech crowd. PVP-OPM is going to torque off anyone and everyone who comes into contact with it. Treating your customers like crooks - welcome to the happy MS future, where the dreams of the RIAA and MPAA have become reality.

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