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Microsoft Class Action Suit Outcome: Indifference
Ec|ipse writes points out that only about 7 percent of eligible Californians have decided to take Microsoft up on their settlement claims resulting from a class action suit in that state, writing "Microsoft contends that it's because the software giant is so popular with consumers." Eclipse excerpts from the press release on Yahoo! (from Settlement Recovery Center, a company that "helps businesses participate in class action settlements"): "With only two weeks remaining until the January 8 deadline, fewer than one million claims have been filed, out of some fourteen million eligible, for a share of the $1.1 billion fund arising out of the Microsoft class action settlement in California."
Does this mean the people who do bother to file get more money? Looks like they'll be getting about 1200 each at this point.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
giving a few million people a few dollars isn't going to change the world, I think the 1.1 Billion dollars would have been better invested in open source software.
There is no god
This just shows something most geeks are too naive to realize: There exists a huge gap between how geeks see MS and how Everyone Else(TM) sees MS. Call it the "Microsoft Gap".
Had the 14 million people eligible to take a small slice of Microsoft's money all been geeks, I'd say at least 10 million would have claimed the money-- not because they needed it, but simply to hurt, and spite, MS. It would have been a little "death of a thousand cuts" for MS. Instead, we got a lackluster 1 million claiming their slice of the pie. Actually, it's a miracle that even that many people signed on.
Most geeks are too naive to realize just how popular Microsoft really is among the general populace.
To most geeks, Bill Gates is a wily scuzzbag who happened to be in the right place at the right time, applied his incredible business acumen, and now is in a position where his company can milk the general populace for a significant percentage of the cost of a new computer every single time they buy one. He's a robber baron who takes other companies'/peoples' good ideas, bastardizes them, and makes money on them, leaving the original creators to go bankrupt (at worst) or carve out tiny niche markets (at best). Or he just buys them out.
However, to non-geeks (reminder: this covers 99+% of the US population), Bill Gates is a hero and a role model. He is someone that they aspire to be like, due to his incredible wealth and business acumen. The general Party Line among the unwashed masses seems to be "Well, Windows is what everyone runs, so it must be the best." This is rather akin to "every keyboard uses QWERTY, so QWERTY must be better than all other layouts" (e.g. Dvorak). It's also akin to "VHS beat out Beta, so VHS must be better in all ways." Nevertheless, this is how most people in the US feel on the matter.
Until geeks understand how non-geeks think, no progress will be made in educating the public.
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
At my local (California) community college, one Monday in mid-December, four young men stood outside the cafeteria. They were trying to get people to sign a petition "to help breast cancer research". They were being a little abrasive; people who ignored them were assailed with loud comments like, "Oh, I guess you don't care about breast cancer."
I walked up to them and asked what their petition was about. The "leader" explained that only 1% of people had claimed their refunds from Microsoft's antitrust settlement. He said that he and his companions were working for the antitrust lawyers, who would be paid on the basis of how many people actually collected this settlement money. If I signed certain paperwork, the $100 I was "entitled" to would go to breast cancer research, and I would get a tax deductible donation. "So have you bought any Microsoft products in the past?" he asked.
"No."
"Does your computer have any Microsoft stuff on it?"
"No," I replied. "I use Linux."
"Ohh, Lanux," he replied knowingly. He tried again: "Have you even used anything from Microsoft?" He reminded me I didn't need documentation.
At that moment, a middle-aged woman walked briskly up to the table. "I do NOT appreciate what you said to my daughter!" she said.
"What?"
"She couldn't sign your petition--because she's only 16. And you said, 'Bad karma, I hope you get breast cancer'!"
I left the table and walked over to a young woman standing a few yards away. "Did they actually say that?!" I asked.
"Yes," she said, tears in her eyes. "I can't sign that, because I'm not old enough. And they said, 'Bad karma, I hope you get breast cancer.'"
"That's terrible," I said. Her mom came back to us, snapped, "Let's go," and they did.
I left for class. As I did, I heard a young-ish female student trying to score points with the petitioning males: in a catty, loud voice, she remarked, "Gosh, some people are soooo easily offended."
If aspiration is a virtue, achievement cannot be a vice.
The public sees this suit as a shakedown that'll benefit lawyers. The suit never made sense. How can someone claim they were over charged for Windows when the vast majority got Windows with their PCs, and the OEM price for Windows is about $50, which is cheaper than other commercial OSes? That's why this suit was thrown out of court in most states. It wasn't thrown out in CA because CA has some left-wing law that would allow for an individual to claim to have been overcharged on the OEM version of Windows. Even then, the case had no merit, but Microsoft only settled to be done with it.
I choose not to file any claim since I don't support the suit in the first place, nor does 99% of the public at large.