Technology Today

Over the last few days I've been working in a program called Adobe Flash CS4 to create a corporate video introduction. After completing the video I intended to turn it into a standard Quicktime video, like most things you view on the internet. When I tried to export it, however, the video looked terrible. Parts of it were missing entirely. So I looked it up to find some help, and as it turns out there's a problem in the program that happens with Macs. It's been like this since its release, and Adobe is showing no intent to change it.

Whenever I purchase a product these days, particularly concerning electronics or programs, I more or less expect something to not work properly. I expect to have issues connecting to the internet, or not having a touch pad work all the time, or having a program auto-quit on me in the middle of working. These are things commonly accepted in today's world of technology...they're bugs, they happen. My question is, why is it accepted?

Why is it acceptable for a company to put out what is, essentially, a defective product? The more I think about it, the less sense it makes. If my grandparents bought a product a mere thirty years ago and it didn't work exactly as intended they returned it, no questions asked. With electronics, for the most part, we don't. We suffer through the technical problems by trying to find the solutions ourselves or listening to a support line. What happened between then and now that allowed developers to get away with releasing products unfinished?

My gut reaction is that we're dealing with products far more complicated than ever before. One coding mistake, one misplaced wire, among the millions of code lines and thousands of circuits, can cause a slew of problems. It must be extremely difficult and time consuming to make sure all those parts are in order. That said, isn't it the developer's and manufacturer's jobs to make sure they are? I find it difficult to excuse those mistakes knowing someone gets paid to ensure it.

Is it about the rush to get the product out, do we have to blame ourselves for some of this? Not only for becoming okay with shoddy work to begin with, but for needing everything on demand so badly that it pushes companies to rush out their products? I look forward to the day when I can purchase an electronic product and not only expect it to work as reliably as a swiss army knife, but hold it to those expectations instead of letting its failures slide simply because it's electronic.