Theodicius
Good. Evil. Bratwurst.

Had a brain wave this Christmas. My son-in-law is still a bit of an enigma to me (heck, so is his wife, in many ways, and I spent 20 years with her) so buying presents is a stretch. Oh, I could buy off his Amazon list, but that takes all the fun out of present hunting.

So, anyway, the brain wave was Safari. No, not the web browser, but the O’Reilly publishing venture’s electronic book service. He works from home most of the time, and this would give him access to the best computer reference library in the world. Great! Seemed like just the ticket.

Except for one minor glitch. The O’Reilly system seems to be not just unfriendly, but actually downright hostile to the idea that someone might want to give it as a gift! I don’t know why, perhaps Tim doesn’t believe his bookshelf would make a good gift for someone. But for whatever reason, the hostility of the O’Reilly website almost blew a sale for them this year (it didn’t, but only because my determination to give this overcame my common sense; a more rational person than I would have simply told them to shove it, and moved on to another gift idea).

First, there’s no way to give someone a Safari account without first creating a general O’Reilly acount for them. This is absurd. How do I know which email account Jeff wants associated with this, and how do I ask him without giving it away? I work past that by using the account he uses for most of his other public work. At least it didn’t require email-based activiation of the account, so I could get this far, at least, without tipping him off what was coming.

Second, it stores my credit card information. That wouldn’t be bad, in and of itself, but ask yourself the question: If I’m going to be giving it to someone else, why would I want my credit card information on file related to it? Doesn’t that seem in the least bizarre?

Now let’s compound the problem a little. First, O’Reilly uses the negative-option renewal plan. This, of course, is a Big No-No in customer service. Give me the choice of making the renewal a negative-option scheme, but also let me say “I want one year and one year only. I’ll let you know if I want to continue it later.”

Because of the bad renewal plan, it won’t let me delete mt credit card from the account unless I substitute Jeff’s for it! This is wrong on so many levels. In effect, it’s going to hold my card info hostage.

And all this because the nice folks over at O’Reilly never considered the idea that someone might want to give their service as a gift. Considering the arrogance of the default renewal program, this lack of confidence in their own products and services is remarkable.

C’mon, Tim! Am I the only person in the world who’s ever thought Safari would make a good present for a beloved techie? Are you telling me your recent study about how people use Safari didn’t turn up the fact that some people would like to give it as a gift?

General advice: When building an e-commerce site, especially one with subscription services, take into account the apparently uncommon idea that the products and services you’re selling just might make for a good gift for someone, and allow the gift giver to easily give it, without having to make a commitment to renew the gift every year.

And, while the negative-option method is good to have as a user-selectable option, it should be an option your customer can select, rather than the default. It’s like saying to your customer “Now that you’ve purchased it, I’m going to pick your pocket for more funds whenever I feel like it until you slap my hand, and if you try and stop me, I’m going to cut you off.” It’s a good line for a drug dealer, but do you really want your customers to think of you in those terms?

Thomas Roessler goes off on a rant because Apple isn’t providing a way to download from an iPod. Never mind that iPodDownload is widely available; no, that doesn’t count because Apple didn’t write it.

Personally, I think it’s foolish to insist that the hardware builders are the only proper source for software. I phrased it that generally, because that, in a nutshell, is what’s going on here. Apple builds the iPod, and distributes it. As any purveyor of portable music, it is closely watched by the RIAA and other silly organizations. So why would anyone expect them to just dare the control freaks of the world to sue them?

Instead, they build the platform and release software to make it work. They also release information to enable other developers to design and build extensions to the base configuration they distribute. Compare worst-case scenarios:

Worst-Case Scenario A: Apple’s iPod/iTunes system is a totally closed environment. RIAA sues Apple, and, due to an uninformed judge (hardly a rarity these days) wins. Now there’s no ability to download from iPods.

Worst-Case Scenario B: Apple’s iPod/Itunes system is extensible, and a third-party group issues a downloading plug-in for it. RIAA sues, and gets the same uninformed judge as above. The third-party plug-in is withdrawn from the market, only to spring up again from another source. Eventually the RIAA runs out of targets (for example, the plug-in gets built and distributed from another country) and we continue to download from our iPods.

Which is preferable?

I truly don’t understand this desire for monolithic products. As a consumer, I don’t want to buy *any* product that restricts me to one company for extensions/supplies/whatever. I’ve been victimized too many times by companies who promote a product as expandable/extensible only to have them discontinue support for the expansion and leave me stranded. I’d much rather see a community of developers building extra features for an existing product; it helps to guarantee I won’t be stuck at the mercy of a CEO that doesn’t care about my problems, and only wants me to have to re-buy everything I currently have in order to continue as I have been.

I don’t expect any one company to understand every possible way I want to use a product. I don’t care where Microsoft (Apple, Dell, fill in your own favorite company here) wants to take me. I have my own agenda, I have my own set of goals. While no one will share every one of them, there are bound to be companies out there who share one or two, so I grab their products to extend the use of the product I have (such as buying a snow-thrower attachment from one company for the grass trimmer I bought from another) until I can do what I want.

It’s not Apple’s (Microsoft’s, Sony’s, etc.) job to enable you to do everything you want to do. And it shouldn’t be.

In the warm afterglow of Christmas, while my oldest was putting together the CSI puzzle (complete with UV light) that was the hit of her Christmas, I decided to checkmy email. Reggie White is dead, and Dave Locke is in a coma.

Reggie was one of the finest defensive lineman ever to play the game of football. There are a lot of memories of him to choose from, but the one I’ll always remember is from a Denver game. The offense had a lot of trouble scoring, but finally had moved ahead of Denver late in the fourth quarter. Elway came out on the field to lead another of his patented comebacks, and almost single-handedly Reggie shut the door on him, sacking him twice in four plays. It was a lesson on what a great player can do, when the game is on the line.

Dave is a science fiction fan, in every meaningful usage of the term. While he has a reputation that would kindly be described as “prickly”, I have to say I’ve never found him so. I’ve always found him intelligent, quick-witted, and, in short, someone I’d be happy to chat with beside the fire on a long winter’s evening. It would be great to know him better, but if this is all I’m going to have I still count myself lucky.

First Christmas is over with, second one is coming. Second, you ask? My youngest is bringing my grandson and his father up from Arizona, and we’ll have another Christmas with them tonight.

One is splendid, two is nothing short of magnificent.