D_Fresh's Journal: G4 shipping, and comments on the Palm m130 situation

At last, six days later, the new G4 has shipped. My excitement is growing, but of course my parents are coming this weekend and I have two, possibly three job interview this week, which will take me away from the house and potentially make me miss the delivery. And the FedEx guys, while polite, are about as dumb as a box of hair. I've tried more than once to get a form or something to sign so they'll just leave packages without signatures, and they always just look at me stupidly and say there's no form, but maybe they will next time. What happens when I'm working and no one's in the house during the day? Do we just have to pick up packages at the FedEx offices? That's beyond lame.

I just noticed that the "journal topic" drop down is populated differently depending upon which /. section you're in - since I'm somehow writing from within the ""Your Rights Online" bit, I don't have all the detailed Apple topics I usually do. That's fine with me - I talk too much about Apple anyhow.

I'm getting awfully sick of consumer whining, I have to say. From the .Mac subscription fees to this latest Palm m130 color screen blowup, it seems like people have a persecution complex when it comes to corporations. What happened to allowing people some slack for mistakes? I'm not saying that Palm should be allowed to get off scott-free - they should offer m130 buyers discounts, free stuff, apologies, etc. - but there was a time when customer loyalty meant backing off of a troubled company at times. Palm isn't exactly financially stable these days, and the people who bought an m130 chose a Palm product, so they must prefer the company over Handspring and Sony at some level. If you want Palm (or Apple, or any other company that's had a misstep lately) to survive and remain solvent, stop jumping down their throats for the least little infraction and demanding compensation. This smacks of entitlement, and it's not an attractive quality. I've been known to complain to companies before, and I've received some kind compensation every single time I've done so, but in every case my position was unambiguously correct. Griping about 58,000 colors rather than 65,000 colors on a PDA does not qualify, IMHO. It's just not egregious enough. I mean, they didn't actually charge for a full 16-bit screen, did they? m130 buyers got what they actually paid for, no? The fact that they didn't get exactly what they were expecting based on company claims is bad, but you have to consider the magnitude of the mistake.

That said, Palm has one more strike before they're out. This was a serious blow to their credibility, and I believe in forgiving but not forgetting. If I were an m130 customer I'd be miffed, but I'd survive and move on, warily. There are companies I'd recommend staying away from altogether (Jiffy Lube comes to mind, and never buy furniture from Eddie Bauer), but Palm is not one of them. Yet.