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Walmart Rejects Firefox and Safari
babooo404 writes "Last week, Walmart launched their online video download service. Immediately there were posts that the service did not work with the Firefox or Safari browsers. There was a collective, "WTF" when this happened as this is 2007, not 1997. Now it appears that reports are out that Walmart has completely turned off the ability to get into the application at all by Firefox, Safari or any other browser it does not like."
Shocking revelation: one big profit driven multinational corporation being paid by another big profit driven multinational corporation to do something they probably shouldn't be doing. Whatever next?
Firefox users by their very nature are the sort of people to try something new. Firefox is something you have to go out of your way to install on Windows, it's not bundled with Windows, and so I rather suspect that the 15% (approx) of internet users who have it as their primary browser are among the top 15% of people who are most likely to try a new video download service. Walmart are blocking the very people who will try this thing.
Now, if I were a Walmart stock holder I'd be asking some very searching questions about whether or not the board is acting in my best interest with this move. If I invest in a company I expect the people running it to work to make my investment pay a good return. Hell, they have a legal duty to do so (in the UK where I live anyway).
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FTA: "The video that you download requires Digital Rights Management 10 (DRM 10) software"
So, the video only works in Windows (Media Player 10+, presumably). I think it's safe to assume that if you have WMP10, you also have IE, so if making the site IE-only prevents* people from accessing it who can't use the product anyway, what's the big deal?
*Yeah, yeah. "I don't WANNA use IE on my Windows box. IE sucks." It's not like you have to UNinstall Firefox to do so, so suck it up, princess.
I've been on the fence about shopping at walmart for awhile. They're never my first choice, and I think I've only been shopping there about 5 times in the past year. After this, it's one more reason not to shop there. Yet another reason - unrelated - was that the last couple times I've been there I had great service from a particular employee. In both cases I made a point to call up the store's regional manager and praise this person. Two months later I found out that this employee had not received any mention, acknowledgement or recognition. Just seemed to speak volumes about how they treat their people, and this latest move speaks to how they treat their customers.
creation science book
Bit Torrent still works. It's completely cross-platform, too.
(When I said "Don't worry," I was saying that to the customers. WalMart should worry.)
-- My Weblog.
If you want to use this service, the downloads require Digital Rights Management 10 (DRM 10) software. This doesn't just lock out browsers that they don't know how to code for, but also all non-Microsoft operating systems.
The fact the Walmart is behind this also scares me. Walmart has changed the face of American retail for good and bad. Walmart has been able to force it's suppliers to bow to their knees for fear that Walmart doesn't carry their product. If the number one retailer in the world would have realized what their customers want, media without restrictions, this could have actually fought and easily won against the iTunes store, and NetFlix. I just hope this doesn't catch on, because it will give other retailers another justification to place Microsoft's desires above that of the consumers.
The part I dont like is people continue to support these tactics by using/patronizing the products/places that are directly responsible to taking away their choice and alternative. Wise up people. You may one day wake up to find you have no options left.
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It's not always possible. Sometimes websites use IE-specific features like VBScript or ActiveX or other IE-specific features (or bugs) as a test.
precisely why they do not care about what browser you use.
I reject your reality
I don't know about partnership programs, but I do know that I've run into a couple of websites that use Flash media which claim that the latest version distributed by Novell as part of OpenSuSE 10 is not complaint. Yet as far as I'm aware the versions correlate, so it's just bad scripting on the part of bands and others who insist on using Flash in their websites, not a problem with the deployed tools or browsers.
I've never liked the idea of coding to a browser. Use the standard query tags to determine the browser capabilities, and let any ugliness fall on the head of the vendor who ships incompatible crap. At very least, default to pure W3C, not Microsquishy.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Looks like Wall Mart got the Microsoft Kool-Aid.
I think Microsoft got the former CIO of Wal-Mart and that relationship appears to be influencing Wal-Mart's choice of technology. Only a massive blast of the Ballmer arrogance death ray could convince Wal-Mart to karate CHOP 35% of their potential customers.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Safari runs on Mac OS X. You can't watch the Walmart movies without WMP/DRM v10. You won't have that on a Mac. That's probably where Walmart's reasoning ends.
I think its interesting that the majority of comments so far place Slashdotters in the demographic of people who don't shop at Walmart. I believe this is mistaken, or at least a gross over generalization. I for one am a poor college student, I shop at Walmart because I don't tons of money that would let me shop at other places. Lets face it, Walmart is often cheaper for many products. So, to stretch the $50, that are all I have to my name at the moment, the farthest I shop at Walmart. I also use Firefox, so I don't think its really fair to lump the people who use Firefox with those who are financially stable enough to shop else where than Walmart. Remember, living below the poverty line doesn't mean you're stupid, it does mean that you have to make some decisions as to what you'll spend your money on. As in, if I want to have my own computer and high-speed internet (which I see as a necessity since I'm a CS major and do undergraduate research in machine learning), then I shop for groceries, clothes, etc. where they are the least expensive.
No... not so be it. When corporations center back to a single source, the community at whole is effected. Now I understand that this Walmart action isn't devastating, it does effect us. Do you want to become South Korea?
-Jon
Channel 4 (UK), Amazon, Blockbuster, etc. iTunes isn't in the same league, but still requires the use of a seperate app. Even some uploading is restricted, Metacafe (as was mentioned on /. a few weeks ago) uses flash (!) to upload videos and can't handle linux contributors.
There is currently no legal competition for the likes of TPB and Mininova, and thus the movie producers will keep losing out.
WalMart is so profitable because it targets average middle America. Its niche happens to be precisely the vast bulk of people who don't know much about computers and stick with the default Internet Explorer. Because the company targets this niche so successful, it obviously would feel little need to ensure that its site works with the minority of users who use other browsers. It's not fear of hackers, it's just a desire to do as little work as possible. In any event, should we really care about not being to shop online at Wal-Mart?
I had the same, "oh, so what?" reaction at first, but your post made me realize: Walmart's dominance in the marketplace (and indeed, calling them a "niche" retailer is hysterical) means that all those grandmothers, aunts, uncles, significant others, friends, etc which we have spent time convincing to use some other browser ("It works with almost everything, PLEASE use it instead of Internet Explorer") hit walmart.com and get a big "I DO NOT WORK WITH THIS SILLY LITTLE BROWSER."
What happens? Grandpa mutters something, we look like idiots/liars, the alternative browser never gets used again, and Internet Explorer's market share creeps back up. Grandpa tells his buddies at the VFW that his "rocket scientist" grandson installed some "Flame squirrel" browser that didn't *even* work with *Walmart's* website. Etc.
By the way, folks- it's best to encourage people to use almost anything but IE, and not just ONE other browser, to encourage standards compliance. Already, site designers seem to only care/brag about making sites work in IE or Firefox- and said site breaks in Safari, Opera, etc. That's not how the web is supposed to work.
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In a way it makes perfect sense that Wal-Mart would be in bed with Microsoft. Both companies have a storied history of questionable business practices and ethics. Both companies devour the competition, offer you some watered-down compromise, and tell you how great it is. Both companies seek total domination and are getting more desperate as they see their dominance starting to erode. Really, this shouldn't be much of a surprise.
... you might also want to do a good turn by doing some shopping for her at a locally-owned store...assuming you have any left.How does paying more money for things that could be bought more cheaply at a larger store like Walmart or Target or Rite-aid help Grandma? I don't understand.
Because the tendency of these corporate behemoths is to own and control distribution of goods from top to bottom. When that happens, there will be no competition, and your choices will be to buy from them at whatever price they deem fit to charge, make everything yourself, or do without.
I see you got modded informative, so presumably someone understood you. I can not grasp what you mean to save my life. What do you mean?
Where does your quotation end? Whom would you CC the email to? When do you offer them this discount? If you're discounting your services almost exactly as much is you charge, how is this supposed to increase profits? For which request is the grandparent supposed to charge this mystery amount of money?
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Of course once users do get in the website, they'll most likely find that the available content if wrapped in MS-only DRM. So getting in with Safari or Firefox (on a non Windows machine) would presumably be pointless anyway (except possibly to transfer the data to a windows machine at a later time, assuming that such a thing is even possible).
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Made from the freshest electrons.
If you don't like what Wal-Mart is doing the answer is pretty simple -- don't shop there.
This is one of those things where the market will correct itself. The natural evolutionary path being that they will lose market share to users of non-Windows based platforms as well as Windows users that use non-IE browsers. That's probably a fair segment of the market.
This problem will take care of itself.
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
You must have missed the poster's other line: us techno-geeks don't make up a whole lot of marketshare.
I highly doubt there's many average users who have home-built PCs without Windows.
Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
That's great advocacy, but shitty for businesses. Cutting out 80%-90% of your clients simply because "they should know better" is, quite honestly, childish. Yes, IE isn't the de jure standard, but it sure as hell is the de facto one. Fair enough if it's your own personal webpage, but if it has to generate revenue, you're shooting yourself in the foot by thumbing your nose at IE. It won't make people drop IE, but it will make them drop your site.
You're exaggerating to say that 35 percent of the market uses something other than IE. As a Safari user, I'd certainly like more people to use anything other than IE, simply because it forces sites to pay attention to cross-platform compatibility. But IE still controls something like 80 percent of the market.
= 0
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid
The most popular portable video player (by far) is the ipod. Do the math.
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That's simply not true. Modern IE is Windows-only. IE5 was the last version that had any non-Windows implementations. MS abandoned both the MacOS and Solaris versions years ago, leaving them full of holes that will never be fixed and non-functional on modern systems. Apple is shipping half a million Macs every month without IE and with no way to run IE without an emulator, virtual machine, or dual-boot setup.
This is true, but off-target. The Mac segment of the home computer population (which is significantly larger than the Linux segment or the Mac share of new sales) is not mostly "techno-geeks" at all. Depending on whose numbers you believe (and WM's internal numbers might be best for them...) the shunning of non-IE browsers locks out 7-20% of users completely, and they are generally a more affluent segment.
Of course, that does not mean the decision by WM is not smart business. They know all about market segmentation and how to focus on winnable games. The no-IE segment is messy and expensive to serve, and the biggest slice (Mac users) has a lock-in to the existing dominant player in commercial video download: Apple. There's also a problem with the content providers: they demand strong DRM and that is hard to provide without staying MS-only or being Apple.
Of course, Walmart proudly sells computers preloaded with Linspire and corporately uses Red Hat. That must be some good kool-aid. Methinks there is more to the story.
This story won't die and keeps popping up. But no one seems to care that the drm used for the videos will only work in windows. Which means safari support would be extremely retarded, and firefox support isn't needed. What would be the point in letting someone purchase drm video through firefox when they might not be on a windows platform. It makes perfect sense to restrict a windows only product to ie, it's a safe guard to prevent people who can't use the videos from buying them. If walmart allowed purchases through firefox, everyone would be freaking out about how non windows users can buy videos they can't play.
This is another one of those crap articles that links to a blog, which links to other blogs, and doesn't link to the actual source of the problem.
Which is WalMart Video Downloads (Beta).. And which is currently returning the message "Site Temporarily Unavailable The Wal-Mart Video Downloads store is currently unavailable due to temporary site maintenance. We apologize for any inconvenience. Please try again later."
So see what happens when it comes back up.
Of course, the real problem is probably that, having downloaded, you can only play the resulting download with Windows Media Player.
No. This is Walmart's competitor to the iTunes Store. And Mac users are not welcome. It's almost as if Walmart doesnt't want to actually succeed. They've up and launched a competing solution, and then told a very large chunk of potential switchers that there will be no easy migration. This goes way beyond stupid and in to the territory of not working in stockholder's interests.
We all know that there are no technical reasons for Walmart's store to be IE only. Either Walmart does not want the store to be successful, or they are being bribed to make it IE-only, or their studio-approved DRM is Windows-only. No matter what, there is something underhanded going on here.
That's no solution.
OSX is not broken, the site is. And any site that tries to force you to use a particular browser does not deserve your business.
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"relatively wealthy mom and pop"
I am just curious about what kind of Mom and Pop stores you have had experience with? I don't know a single local store holder (and I have four such people in my family and shop at several others where I have become friends with the owners and talk to them about their business vs how things are going with mine/family members/etc.) that is rolling in the dough. From my personal experience, you run a small local business because you love what you do. You put in extremely long hours and you do a *lot* of work. If you are lucky, then you can make enough to support your family. Of course, the more big chain stores like Walmart come into the community the harder it is for the smaller stores.
If you think that monetarily supporting a store is fairly well documented for treating its employees poorly, being anti-union, and exporting work out of the country to others where the workers conditions are atrocious (think back to the days when the company you worked for owned your housing and the stores that you bought your supplies at) is doing society a favor - then you and I have a different idea of what makes society better. In the short term, shopping at Walmart might be cheaper for you, but in the long run the cost/benefit analysis for the community will not come out positively. I am tired of people and governments thinking only in the short term. Heaven forbid we plan ahead even a year or two, much less ten or twenty...
Walmart also helps to create and sustain the paradigm that creates those "poorer folk" that you mention. I don't have the time or the patience to give you an economics lesson. Please, please educate yourself. If you want some "edutainment" there is video Walmart: The High Cost of Low Prices that lays everything out in an easy to understand manner that won't require a lot of background understanding.
Yes but unfortunately for Walmart I suspect it is the geeks that will be the first addopters of these types of services. So while to the techno-geeks are a small part of the global market they are probably a huge part of the addopter market for the Walmart's service. I suspect that Walmart's video services will end up just as successfull as DVD service.
OK... So.. if IE can't render a standards compliant web page, then -by definition, it's broken. I understand that M$ pretty-much owns the installed base of web browsers (meaning IE), but that does not (or should not) give them license to just go their own way whenever they feel like it. I'm not a W3C expert or anything, but I'd bet there's a way to get a new feature, capability, etc. buy submitting it to the W3C and having it voted on. Microsoft didn't invent (well, really... anything) the WWW, or the web browser.
So, IMHO, they should follow the standards, whatever they are -- or at least be able to correctly deal with them.
Most of whom will be buying their online music from Apple. What I find curious about this is that Walmart still sells computer with Linspire. They're actually denying access to customers who have bought their computer from Walmart!