🚀 go-pugleaf

pissed off wrote:

> "Criswell The Psychic Weatherman" <ssenate@mindless.com> wrote in message
> news:3E4B9076.26037888@mindless.com...
>
> >You must be a very bad shill for Intuit, if you're recommending using
> anything and everything that is not an Intuit product.
> > Maybe you're not a shill at all, and "pissed off" has a lot of misplaced
> anger.
>
> Jim Turner recommends that I get a refund from Intuit and then stop
> complaining about their corporate abuse. Paying me a refund has no impact in
> Intuit. Publicly complaining might have an impact. Jim Turner knows this. By
> labeling protest as "immaturity," and seeking to lie and misrepresent the
> complaint, he is acting as if he is Intuit's agent.
>
> >I heard that, not once, not twice, but three times.  What kind of a shill
> would tell you to hurt the company he is shilling for?  >A very poor shill,
> or one who is not a shill at all.
>
> My getting a refund doesn't hurt Intuit. My complaining on the Internet
> might have the effect of putting pressure on Intuit to back off from its
> corporate abuse. Jim Turner has misrepresent the facts that gave rise to the
> complaint, and labeled any protest as "immaturity."
>
> By doing these things, he is acting as Intuit's shill.
>
> > There is that *and* concept again.  "pissed off" wants to run the software
> *and* complain about it.
>
> Now *you* are lying. I do not want to "run the software and complain about
> it." I haven't run the software since I figured out what the issue was. I
> was waiting for Intuit to back off, and complaining publicly in the
> meantime. I'm going to keep complaining. It is not "immature" to protest a
> corporation's abusive actions.
>
> > It's wrong to complain in a place where your complaint can't and won't be
> resolved.  You need to complain in a place
> > where it will be heard, acknowledged, and possibly resolved.  This is not
> such a place.  More misplaced anger.
>
> So Criswell, who are *you* working for? You say it's "wrong to complain in a
> place where your complaint can't be an won't be resolved." Who says it can't
> be or won't be resolved as the result of outraged current and former
> customers publicly protesting Intuit's abusive tactics?

I see it now.  Just because I have an opinion that you don't like, even when I'm
agreeing with you, I must also be a shill.  In fact, everyone in the entire
world is an Intuit shill.  Paranoia is an interesting worldview, as everything
in the world continues to reinforce it.

Who do I work for?  Read my posts.  I've made no secret of that.

The C-Dilla issue has been posted to the taxes newsgroups by just about
everyone.  PC magazine wrote about it.  The Wall Street Journal wrote about it.
The word is already out on C-Dilla, but perhaps not yet in alt.biz.accounting,
as that is not a newsgroup I normally read.

If you feel you must add your voice to the thousands that are already screaming,
go right ahead, but one screaming voice in a crowd of thousands isn't likely to
make the screaming thousands any louder.  Intuit is already getting the
message.  Intuit is already having to individually process every refund
request.  Can you imagine how many they must process every day as more and more
people decide that they don't want C-Dilla?  Your single individual refund will
have little impact, as will your single individual complaint here.  What will
have impact is the multiplied factor of all of those complaints directed towards
Intuit and the multiplied factor of having to process all of those refunds
individually.

> Let's be clear about this.
>
> Intuit included spyware in its personal finance software. If you don't allow
> Intuit to place software on your computer that has the capability of spying
> on you, then your tax software won't work. This is an outrageous betrayal of
> trust by Intuit. It is arrogant and stupid.

You could say that.  Technically, C-Dilla isn't spyware, because spyware reports
information back to the host without your approval.  The only information being
reported is your activation code, and you freely allowed that.  However, C-Dilla
does run in the background and does use and waste resources.  In a world where
everyone abided by license agreements, we wouldn't need C-Dilla.  However, there
is nothing preventing me from making copies and selling them myself,
undercutting Intuit, and pocketing the cash.  In fact, someone in this thread,
or a similar one has admitted to doing this for several years.  [This is in the
taxes newsgroups, and you may not have seen it]  You feel it's betrayal, and I
would agree, but you fail to realize that Intuit would like to protect some of
the investment that they put into making TurboTax.  Do you feel they don't have
that right?  Should Intuit provide tax software just so everyone could copy it,
and they would lose money from lack of sales?  Is it Intuit's fault that CD
burners are rather common and cheap and so are blank CD's?  If you were making
the decisions at Intuit, how would you protect your licensed property?  What
would you, as the decision maker at Intuit, do?

> There is a long tradition in America of people protesting corporate abuse.
> Apparently, Jim Turner, you and others think that software companies are
> immune from criticism, and regard anyone who criticizes a corporation as
> "immature" for doing so. Hey, welcome to the Republican Party!!

Again, you have trouble with reading comprehension.  I did not say to abandon
your protest.  I said it would be more effective if it was more directly pointed
towards Intuit.  You're free to complain to anyone anywhere, but if you complain
where no action can be taken to resolve the complaint, you have just wasted a
lot of energy, achieved nothing, and probably increased your own frustrations.
If I had a problem with a particular store in a particular mall, would it make
sense to protest in a different mall that didn't have that store?  Or in that
other mall where the store in question did not have that problem?

In my opinion, the word is out on C-Dilla.  The damage is done.  Intuit is
already feeling it, by having to process the refunds, and realizing that every
published article gets the word out.  I don't know how many people read this or
the other newsgroup.  I just feel that the amount of people you will reach by
this method will be small, and likely already know of the problem.  Thus, I feel
your protest is ineffective.  Is that so hard to understand?

Did you suggest "Flood Intuit's website with e-mails of protest for C-Dilla"?  I
didn't see you call for such an action.  That might be more effective.  You feel
Intuit should re-engineer TurboTax this year without C-Dilla.  Intuit is more
concerned with getting tax updates out as some of the laws are very recent.
They have actually lagged behind the other software packages in their updates,
and I suspect dealing with C-Dilla is the reason.  They can't re-engineer it out
this year.  They spent too much time and effort incorporating it.

Has Microsoft removed Internet Explorer from Windows, as the courts ordered them
to?  They can't.  They designed it in intentionally.

The two different versions of TurboTax [with and without C-Dilla] would not be
compatible, and would you want two different TurboTax's on your same computer?
They will almost certainly not use it next year, but the question remains, what
if anything will they use next year to protect their license agreement and
investment?  [Assuming that C-Dilla hasn't permanently poisoned the TurboTax
name]

Instead of calling everyone a shill, ask yourself what you would do, as decision
maker at Intuit, to protect your license and investment and profits from being
destroyed by CD-burners.  I'd like to hear your answer.
--
"A belief is not merely an idea the mind possesses;
it is an idea that possesses the mind."  Robert Bolton
Criswell The Psychic Weatherman
ssenate@mindless.com