Confession of a Coastal Elite:
This article is Part 2 of 3. Part 1 is here.
Some housekeeping, before I head into the article: In Part 1 last week, I declared the “Windows vs Mac” rivalry to be a spiritual successor to the Ford vs Chevy rivalry. In doing so, I all but pronounced Ford vs Chevy dead. On further review, it has since come to my attention that Ford vs Chevy is, in fact, still alive and well. I’m given to understand that in other parts of the USA (read “flyover country”), it is still quite a thing. It would therefore seem that 17 years in San Diego has turned me into a coastal elite, oblivious to the culture of the American heartland.
In the words of Michael Scott, it takes a big man to admit his mistakes, and I am that big man. Here I am, in my high rise apartment, petting my Pomeranian, nibbling organic foods, and moisturizing twice daily, whilst declaring, erroneously, that domestically manufactured pickup trucks are no longer relevant. I apologize. Sometimes, as I stand on my balcony, looking down on the city, it is difficult to remain connected to the common people below.
With that out of the way, my main point still holds; there is a rivalry between Mac and PC users (Chrome OS being a quirky also-ran). I called my article “The OS Culture War: Part 1” because I concluded by noting that some voices in this rivalry are taking things a bit to far, hence, an escalation from a brand rivalry to a culture war.
New Source of Rampant Anti-Chromebook Sentiment
So who is it, that’s out there besmirching the good name of Chromebooks lately? What is this escalation I speak of? Well, I saw this headline from The Verge first: “Schools bought millions of Chromebooks in 2020 - and three years later, they’re starting to break.”
This headline, in and of itself, is kind of funny, right? Rephrase it, “BREAKING NEWS: We gave laptops to a bunch of kindergarteners. Three years later, some of those laptops are starting to break.”
See what I mean?
The Verge seems to be on a bit of an anti-Chromebook slide at the moment. They came up in my HP Dragonfly review earlier this year, when their reviewer reported an abysmal 2.5 hours per charge on the much-hyped laptop. Now they are sharing a report about how Chromebooks burden taxpayers, and create mountains of “e-waste”. We’ve gone from nit-picking the value of luxury Chromebooks, to now reporting there’s something close to morally wrong with the entire product line.
Whereas the reporting of an awful battery experience was virtually unique and isolated to The Verge, this story about short-lived, toxic, wasteful Chromebooks has wider circulation. It is seemingly carried by every consumer tech news outlet on the internet:
Drilling into the article, I found that the heart of the story is a report issued by the US Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) Education Fund. PIRG is a so-called “consumer advocacy” group, and the brain-child of Ralph Nader.
I didn’t know much about PIRG, but I’m old enough to remember Ralph Nader. Back in the day, he’d run for president and somehow weasel his way into the debates. My mom, who was very sharp on politics, dismissed Nader. She told me about a time, long before I was around, when her and my aunt were school teachers with whole summers off. They’d use the free time to take epic road trips; one year they drove virtually the whole way around the contiguous United States of America - in my aunt’s Chevrolet Corvair.
What’s this got to do with PIRG and Ralph Nader? Nader is famous for writing a best-selling book in the 60’s called “Unsafe at Any Speed.” This book called out car manufacturers for an alleged reluctance to address safety issues. In one chapter, Ralph Nader picked on the Chevrolet Corvair as being particularly unsafe.
Now, the Corvair was a beautiful, wonderful, quirky little car. For one thing, it had it’s engine in the trunk, like a Porsche. That’s enough for legend status, in my mind, all on it’s own. I also think it was a good looking car. Why Ralph Nader singled it out, I do not know, but he damaged its reputation, in the short term.
My mom disagreed with most of Nader’s political platform. Telling me the story of how she’d personally survived an entire summer spent on unfamiliar roads in the “unsafe” Chevrolet Corvair, was a tidy personal anecdote to young George, illustrating how Ralph Nader was a silly man.
As I research the Corvair today, I’m finding there was more than just anecdotal hyperbole from mom. Turns out she was spot on (as usual). Years after the book, studies were done by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration which exonerated the Corvair as being not particularly unsafe (not by 1960’s standards anyway - let’s be real, the people doing the study were probably driving the Corvair while buzzed on Scotch cocktails, and smoking cigarettes the entire time).
Long before proper research came to the defense of the Corvair, the damage from “Unsafe at Any Speed” was done. American consumers lost a beautiful, daring, unique product, at the hands of their “advocate.” And Ralph Nader got a lot of attention, a ton of book sales, and the idea for PIRG - which is now going after Chromebooks.
“Chromebook Churn”
Maybe you could see this coming, but here it is: I am stacking yet another, forced and unnecessary car analogy onto this blog. Please now think of the Chromebook as a Chevrolet Corvair in the 60’s (in addition to last week’s comparison to a Mazda RX-7 in the 80’s): A quirky, delightful, affordable triumph in ingenuity, now under persecution from a “consumer advocate.”
The title of the report from PIRG is “Chromebook Churn.” If you are very VERY bored, you may read the whole thing, here.
As a preview, this is from the summary:
“This report examines why Chromebooks fail, and why it matters.
Those who maintain Chromebooks point to several factors that lead to the churn:
1. Manufacturers typically do not sell new spare parts or otherwise support repair.
2. Computers have a built-in “death date,” after which software support ends.
3. Design choices frustrate repair and reuse.”
I have, unfortunately, read the entire report. I have some thoughts and comments to share. It’s almost 9 on Sunday though, and so we’re going to have to stretch this article to a Part 3.
The NHTSA came too late to the defense of the Corvair. Next week, I hope I can be quicker in aiding Chromebooks. As Google’s reluctant, unpaid, product PR man, I have that responsibility. See you next week, with my hopefully thorough, informative, impolite, and entertaining dismantling of the PIRG report.