Re: Smarthome Insteon Defective Switchlinc Replacement Program (Re: I think they've done it again)

[Marc_F_Hult <MFHult@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 3 Aug 2006 20:43:01 -0400, "Robert Green"
<ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
<I_2dnYY4lux3BE_ZnZ2dnUVZ_sKdnZ2d@xxxxxxx>:

<snip>

>My comments are not meant to be confined just to Smarthome.

*Now* you tell us! ;-) Predictably enough, my responses _have_ been
confined to INSTEON technology.

>They are meant to concern every poor schmoe here who has ended up being an
>unpaid beta tester.  Who here hasn't paid money for something that was so
>buggy that it was useless?

A concern that we mostly all share. One of my horror stories was replacing
pistons, by myself, in an unheated garage during -10F Minnesota weekend on
a Ford with 15,000 miles on it (warranty ended at 12,000) that I bought
brand new (first new car of my life) only to find that the engine
self-destructed because Ford bored out a European 4-cylinder design and
didn't test it in cold weather. Next year, Wisconsin sued and won for
consumers, but that was too late to help me. Every 'spare' dime I didn't
have was in the car which I need to transport family including toddler and
pregnant wife.  The car was a 1975 Pinto [OK. I know that y'all are
laughing with me, not at me;-) ] that _also_ had dangerous tires that self
destructed that I _also_ had to replace at my own expense. And the sedan
(we had a wagon) _also_ had a gas tank that exploded.

I have never again bought an American-made car from an American
manufacturer. 31 years and counting. And I have never again allowed myself
to get so dependent on cars. Never again. So a agree and live by
the/Bobby's? comment that there ought to be consequences.

In the case of INSTEON, I don't have enough facts yet to judge what the
consequences ought be. It is not useful to speculate at his point in my
opinion with respect to this aspect. This is just my own  MO. It is also my
opinion that going off half-cocked with speculative data is inappropriate
if you are serious. I confess to not taking HA very seriously in the sense
that I take my own advocacy work seriously. It is a hobby for me that I
engage in sporadically, and not very well if viewed from a
scientific/professional perspective.

I can see how someone would view it differently and try to "make a
difference" as Bobby seems to be doing. And I/we thank you for that, Bobby.
The car industry has improved greatly -- but apparently not enough. Today's
New York Times reports that three Toyota officials are under investigation
in Japan for concealing defects in Toyotas for eight years. Toyotas recalls
have gone up 41-fold since 2001. So much for Toyota as the paradigm of
consumer satisfaction and protection ...

>The trend for the entire industry - indeed the entire tech sector - is to
>shift whatever costs they can to someone else.  One way to do that is to
>get the customer to eat beta test costs.  I don't think that's right.
>Others may think differently.  That's Usenet.

Well I for one think that industry as a whole has made enormous progress in
consumer protection since the days of Sinclair Lewis. And that the "long
curve" of the Internet has made it both easier for problems to be
identified and their extent to be known and for the record to be distorted
and exaggerated by carelessness and on purpose.