Rantings of a New Yorker

Wal-Mart launched it’s download video service last week but it’s only available to those who use Internet Explorer.  If you use another browser, you’re greeted with a notification to go download IE, use Windows 2000 or XP, and come back and try again.

We notice you’re not using Internet Explorer. To continue, please visit this page using Internet Explorer 6.0 or later.

Firefox, Safari, Opera, and Lynx do not work.  This is due to a coding mistake that prevents CSS from loading properly.  If you do go and use IE, the next warning you get will be

We’re sorry, your operating system is incompatible. To provide the best download experience, we can no longer support Windows 98, ME or NT. Please visit again after you upgrade to Windows 2000 or XP.

So, not only must you use Microsoft’s browser, you must also use their Operating System.  Own a Mac?  Too bad.  Use Linux?  BSD?  Oh well.  Go spend a couple of hundred dollars installing a Windows system and try again.

Many people won’t be devastated by this but it is a problem because companies should not be locking users out of their services if they expect to be profitable.  Normal people will only see that it doesn’t work in anything else and use IE instead of one of the many, perfectly good, alternatives.  It will also anger users who do use the alternative, which could lead them to refusing to have anything to do with Wal-Mart, be it their online service or shopping in their stores.

The effect on computer users is that alternatives not already installed on their computers will not be an option because places like Wal-Mart are telling people that other browsers are not good enough to work with their services, which is an outright lie.  The average user is going to simply click on the “e” and use Internet Explorer because it’s easier than firing off a letter and complain to Wal-Mart.  In the end, people will not want to try other browsers because all they will remember is, “Hey, it didn’t work on that site I went to and I don’t have time to play around with stuff that doesn’t work right.”

There are two reasons why this is happening.  One is an alliance and/or partnership that Wal-Mart and Microsoft have formed.  Wal-Mart requires “DRM 10,” presumably Windows Media 10, to work.

The other, is that there are far too many sloppy programmers at Wal-Mart who simply do not know how to write for anything other than a single browser on a single operating system.  These are the incompetent, lazy, and/or stupid people you went to college with and prayed would never get near a computer again.

It is sad to see that people still code to a browser instead of defaulting to standard tags and W3C compatibility.  There are fixes in Firefox for badly written web pages, but this should not even be an issue.  These sites should be written correctly the first time, stressing cross-platform compatibility to avoid such problems.  The end user should not have to jump through hoops to make their browser appear as if it were really Internet Explorer.

There is also the fact that many Mac users already use iTunes and Wal-Mart probably isn’t going after that section of consumers anyway.  Still, various studies claim that Mac users account for anywhere up to 20% of the computer market and are wealthier than their PC counterparts.  Shunning such a large group could be viewed as a bad business move.

It is hard to understand how Wal-Mart expects to succeed in this area.  They have clearly set up major competition to Apple, but have told a large portion of people that they cannot migrate to their services.  Surely, this is not in the best interest of stockholders.

One thing in Wal-Mart’s favor is that it has always known its market in the United States and is, most likely, working under the assumption that these same people will be purchasing their online services.  These people often do not even know there are browser alternatives.  The ones that do are the same friends and family that you have been harping on for the past several years to switch to an alternative.

Some switched and are now hit with Wal-Mart telling them to take a hike.  All it takes is one negative experience for a person to completely close themselves off to other options.  They’ll also mutter to themselves and then tell everyone they meet that you’re the lunatic because your piece of crap browser doesn’t work at Wal-Mart.

Still, Wal-Mart is overlooking one key item in their new venture.  The very people they are shutting out of their business model are the same people who are willing to try something new (i.e. a new browser or video service).  They are the early adopters that Wal-Mart needs.  If the service is good, they often espouse about how great the service is.  Wal-Mart, in essence, is cutting off its nose to spite its face.

Unfortunately, the RIAA still has a say in all this as they continue to insist that any music sold online be heavily wrapped in DRM, meaning users are stuck with Apple or Microsoft DRM.

This, however, may not end up being a large problem for the people that would purchase these services from Wal-Mart.  Those who are willing to use alternative browsers and operating systems will be highly displeased with their music and video being wrapped in DRM.  They will balk at the very notion of paying for music and video that they cannot control.

Wal-Mart is a profit driven company and they are forcing their customers to use another profit driven company’s products.  Both companies have a long history of abuse towards its customers.  So, what’s the big deal?  Why not just suck it up and use IE and be done with it?  Wal-Mart is lazy and do not care about their customers.  They want my money but they aren’t willing to go the extra step to make things easier for me, the consumer, to give them my money.  I don’t particularly need this service and Wal-Mart is doing nothing to convince me otherwise.  They are, in fact, doing the exact opposite.

Wal-Mart continues to ignore what consumers want; unencumbered video and music.  If they offered that, and they could, given their dominance in America, they could have easily beat iTunes.  Until there are legal alternatives to places like The Pirate Bay and Mininova, these DRM schemes will only receive a fraction of the vast amounts of money consumers hold.

I would say that Wal-Mart just lost any chance of getting my money but they never had a chance to begin with.  All they have done is remind me, once again, why I stopped having anything to do with them.