Poll: How stupid is the avergage PC consumer?

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
IMO, pretty ****ing dumb. I am talking about the soccer moms and dads that go out to Circuit City or Sam's Club to buy a machine or software or whatever. Here are the questions:



1) Do they know a 1GHZ Celeron is not the same as a 1GHZ Pentium?



---my take: No. Well, Yes. The name is different.



2) Do they know what RAM is?



---my take: Some do. They know they have been told they need it.



3) Do they understand that MHZ is not the best measure of performance?



My take: umm, no. Not even a little bit.



4) Do they even look at what the dot pitch and resolution on a Display is?



--my take: No



5) Do they know that Emachines and PowerSpec and the like SUCK MONKEY BALLS?



--my take: Nope. Though they have heard it is easy to get porn on the internet.



6) Do they know how much Windows sucks?



---my take: obviously not.



7) What can actually fix on their computer?



--my take: Almost nothing. I once heard a lady in an Electronics Boutique store yelling at the sales person that she had to return her game because, after all, she spent three hours on the phone with tech support.



I asked my own father (who, years ago worked with industrial computers as a coincidence) what kind of graphics chip his new PC had...he said "It has 3-D GRAPHICS!!!!! "



Wow.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 116
    daverdaver Posts: 496member
    Pretty stupid.



    I'm guessing the average PC consumer knows about as much as my parents do, which is extremely little. They don't know what RAM is. I've brainwashed them into believing that Macs are the only computers that don't suck, though, so I don't have to worry about them defecting to the dark side.
  • Reply 2 of 116
    How dumb? Can you say pet rock? <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />



    1) Nope. "What's in a name?"



    2) Nope, but jesus I wish they did. I have had the hardest time explaining RAM to people and trying to come up with metaphors they can understand. OKAY, SO IS 128 RAM ENOUGH FOR WINDOWS XP? Sure, folks. Sure.



    3) Of course not. BIG NUMBER == BIG POWER! YES.



    4) Nope. LOL, are you kidding?



    5) Nope. LOW PRICE == GREAT DEAL! YES!



    6) Nope. Everyone uses it; so, it must be great!



    7) NOTHING. Ooohhh, I have spent TOO MUCH DAMN FREE TIME helping out people what couldn't "compute" their way out of a paper bag... well, you know what I mean.
  • Reply 3 of 116
    synoticsynotic Posts: 151member
    My take is that they are just ignorant and don't know of any alternatives.
  • Reply 4 of 116
    majormattmajormatt Posts: 1,077member
    Now that middle aged people, some time ago a kid in my class dictated to me why Macs suck; his reasons:
    • ? No Software

    • ? You cant connect anything to 'em

    • ? The Pentium 4 is the best CPU ever

    • ? They constantly crash

    • ? You cant take floppies out unless you use a paperclip

    • And so on

    I finally asked him, what is RAM?



    No answer.
  • Reply 5 of 116
    emaneman Posts: 7,204member
    I think they have to be stupid just to buy a computer in a place like CompUSA, Best Buy, Circuit City, etc.
  • Reply 6 of 116
    dvddvd Posts: 45member
    hey kids in my class, they dont know a lot about computers like more than me, they keep going, ahh this computer is slow (the school's) just like a mac. They say there is no games for mac (so what, get a crashBox or ps2, or stick to your CS bandwagon) They say the same thing, i thought u have to buy all apple stuff, someone asked me did i have to buy a apple brand HD haha cause i told him i got a new one. What retards. 80% of consumers are stupid, the rest must be mac users =] mac people smart hehe.
  • Reply 7 of 116
    Hudreds of thousands of people have shelled out $1,500 for an iMac.



    That is pretty f*cking stupid, if you ask me.



    [ 12-08-2001: Message edited by: DoctorGonzo ]</p>
  • Reply 8 of 116
    emaneman Posts: 7,204member
    [quote]Originally posted by dvd:

    <strong> What retards. 80% of consumers are stupid, the rest must be mac users =] mac people smart hehe.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Well if that was the case then would it be 95% of consumers are retards and the other 5% are Mac users since Apple's got 5% marketshare?
  • Reply 9 of 116
    emaneman Posts: 7,204member
    [quote]Originally posted by DoctorGonzo:

    <strong>Hudreds of thousands of people have shelled out $1,500 for an iMac.



    That is pretty f*cking stupid, if you ask me.



    [ 12-08-2001: Message edited by: DoctorGonzo ]</strong><hr></blockquote>



    If they spent that recently for an iMac then yeah it's stupid. But if it was a couple of years when the first DV SE was $1499 then it wasn't that stupid.



    [ 12-08-2001: Message edited by: EmAn ]</p>
  • Reply 10 of 116
    well judging by the way they come down to subway way 5 mins before we "close" and want a sandwhich........ill say



    Pretty Freaking stupid.





    (sorry, im just getting realllllly tired of people bitching at me because they can't get a sandwhich 5 mins before we close at midnight. yeah, ok, i could go on, but ill end my rant now...)
  • Reply 11 of 116
    alcimedesalcimedes Posts: 5,486member
    ok, two things.



    first, to Gumby. actually, i've always wondered about this.



    why shouldn't people be able to come in 5 min. before you close and expect a sandwich? you're open. those are the store hours. the hours you are open to do business, right? now, i now it's amazingly rude and all, but what's a good reason why they shouldn't expect a sandwhich from a sandwhich store during its posted business hours?



    if you don't want to be there for an hour after midnight cleaning up, close at 11. i'm sorry, but if the hours are posted as open, i think people have every reason to expect that they could go in the place and order.



    second, for a good RAM HD metaphor.



    i tell people to think of it as a big filing cabinet.



    HD space is the size of the filing cabinet. the bigger it is, the more files it can hold total. i tell them that ram is like how many files you can hold in your hand and work with at any given time. the more ram you have, the more files you can pull out of the cabinet and work with. that seems to work for most people.
  • Reply 12 of 116
    emaneman Posts: 7,204member
    [quote]Originally posted by alcimedes:

    <strong>HD space is the size of the filing cabinet. the bigger it is, the more files it can hold total. i tell them that ram is like how many files you can hold in your hand and work with at any given time. the more ram you have, the more files you can pull out of the cabinet and work with. that seems to work for most people.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    That's pretty good. Never thought of it like that.
  • Reply 13 of 116
    sinewavesinewave Posts: 1,074member
    [quote]Originally posted by EmAn:

    <strong>I think they have to be stupid just to buy a computer in a place like CompUSA, Best Buy, Circuit City, etc.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    I know quite a few people that bought Macs at the same places
  • Reply 14 of 116
    sinewavesinewave Posts: 1,074member
    [quote]Originally posted by DoctorGonzo:

    <strong>Hudreds of thousands of people have shelled out $1,500 for an iMac.



    That is pretty f*cking stupid, if you ask me.

    </strong><hr></blockquote>



    Actually most spent less than that.
  • Reply 15 of 116
    emaneman Posts: 7,204member
    [quote]Originally posted by Sinewave:

    <strong>



    I know quite a few people that bought Macs at the same places </strong><hr></blockquote>



    Yeah, I do too. Actually, in '99 I got my iMac there. But at the time I didn't know much about Macs or computers in general so that's why.
  • Reply 16 of 116
    pscatespscates Posts: 5,847member
    Judging by the people I work with and those around me who are using PCs, I honestly have to say:



    Pretty damn stupid.



    They don't really know what they're doing and consider it a major victory if they can print a document properly within six attempts.



    I work with a bunch of Federal employees and to be honest, they excel at turning the computer on, playing Solitaire and occasionally printing a Word document.



    But the first thing that goes wrong, they are at a complete loss. Totally helpless and clueless and don't even WANT to try and diagnose or figure something out on their own.



    They IMMEDIATELY lunge for the phone to call the PC guy who can come "fix it".







    I always liken this attitude/approach to being a carpenter and never quite knowing how to swing a hammer and to be constantly wondering "am I sawing this board correctly?".



    I personally can't imagine going through life THAT ignorant and unaware of my tools that I use to make a living (or to enjoy as a hobby). Although I'm no high-end, system-level tweaker geek extraordinaire, I'm MORE than capable of holding my own, diagnosing and troubleshooting Macs, chasing down a problem, isolation causes, updating, reinstalling, etc.



    It would bug me to no end to know that everytime I sat down at my Mac (either at home or work) that I was simply at the mercy of luck and that I may have a crash or freeze-up and simply have to call it a day because I don't know how to get beyond that.



    But I work with a building full of numbnuts who think in just that way.



    It's awful.



    I don't think it's a PC-user thing as much as a lazy, unmotivated government worker thing.



    But the combination of the two? Now that's deadly.



  • Reply 17 of 116
    leonisleonis Posts: 3,427member
    This is the worst case I have ever seen:



    One guy walked into the electronic store. Saw a clearence 900Mhz Celeron box for 800 CDN. Then he saw the 1Ghz cordless phone. Then he asked why the phone is faster than the computer...then the salesperson told him they are different things. Coreless phone's hz is frequency, not clocked speed.



    But that guy didn't believe what this salesperson said. He said he lies and walkaway....



    Talk about stupid consumer, this is the worst I have seen :rolleye: :eek:
  • Reply 18 of 116
    emaneman Posts: 7,204member
    [quote]Originally posted by Leonis:

    <strong>This is the worst case I have ever seen:



    One guy walked into the electronic store. Saw a clearence 900Mhz Celeron box for 800 CDN. Then he saw the 1Ghz cordless phone. Then he asked why the phone is faster than the computer...then the salesperson told him they are different things. Coreless phone's hz is frequency, not clocked speed.



    But that guy didn't believe what this salesperson said. He said he lies and walkaway....



    Talk about stupid consumer, this is the worst I have seen :rolleye: :eek: </strong><hr></blockquote>



    That has to be one of the stupidest things I've heard. It's so hard believe people are that stupid, but I know it's true.
  • Reply 19 of 116
    g4dudeg4dude Posts: 1,016member
    Actually I bet a lot of people would think a 2.3 ghz cordless phone could kick a Pentium 4's ass (afterall, it's only 2ghz) People are so ****ing dumb. my school is making us all get laptops next year and they won't let us get Macs because they are afraid that it won't be compatible with the windows network. I've talked to the administration, the head master and the principal and they all don't seem to get that macs will work on their network. They ever refuse to try it! Hell, with a Mac you could just plug it in to the network and it would work. A PC would actually be HARDER to set up. People think macs are jokes and that they are not able to do anything! It makes me sooooo mad.
  • Reply 20 of 116
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    I don't think spending $1500 on an iMac SE is stupid at all, EmAn, DoctorGonzo. I don't think price is a factor in this argument either. In fact, I think the reason why the average Mac user is just slighlty better in regards to the topic is because they have already considered Mac or PC and made a judgement NOT based on MHz or ther technobabble they don't really understand.



    Can you really blame a person for buying a computer because it's pretty? Can you blame a person because the computer they bought was easier to set-up than anything else?



    Without places like CompUSA, where do you propose people buy computers? Fry's? That's not a nationwide chain, nor is it much different than CompUSA. When you think about, CompUSA isn't that bad a place to buy a computer. Where else can you go? Online? I don't think I have to tell you about the stigma of online theft/security that most people are paranoid about. So, unless you're planning on buying a Mac, Gateway or a crappy generic computer without decent support, CompUSA is a god-send.
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