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Late Adopters Prefer the Tried and True

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the little-flexibility-never-hurt-too dept.

smooth wombat writes "There is a fairly significant portion of the population which does not go out and grab the newest OS, gadget, web browser or any other technology related product. Why? It's not because they're luddites but rather, they are comfortable with what they know. Take the case of John Uribe, a 56-year old real estate agent who still uses AOL dial-up and only recently switched to Firefox after being prodded for weeks by an AOL message telling him that on March 1st, AOL would no longer support Netscape. Why did it take him so long to stop using Netscape and make the switch? From the article: 'It worked for me, so I stuck with it. Until there is really some reason to totally abandon it, I won't.'"

1 of 383 comments (clear)

  1. Why fix it... by NetDanzr · · Score: 4, Interesting
    ...when it ain't broken? I count myself as one of the schizophrenics who mix new and old. At work, I'm forced to use WinXP and Office 2003 (so far, I refused to switch to Vista and Office 2007, arguing the training time and costs it would take me to learn the new interfaces), but at home I still use Win98SE and Office 97. So far, the only upgrade I was forced to make was to switch from Eudora 3.0 to Thunderbird, as my Eudora didn't support outgoing mail authentication, which became required with my ISP. There are several reasons why I don't feel it's necessary for me to upgrade:

    • It works. My computer does all I need, so there's no reason to uprade
    • Interface. My main problem with any upgrade is new interface I need to get used to. Not only different button layout, but also the way the new technology behaves, reacts to my inputs.
    • New features. I still don't use all the features available in the software I'm using; why should I feel the need for more features I wouldn't be using?

    All this doesn't mean I don't like new technology. However, all the years of work in IT and high-tech startups have taught me that the best innovation one can achieve is a more simplified interface. Technology with more features and thus more complex interface is thus not truly innovative in my book.