The Scandal of the Ubiquitous Reset Button
15/08/2014
Why do people accept products that periodically just stop working?
Imagine you own a car and you periodically have it suddenly stop running and must coast to the roadside. After a check of petrol, oil and water, you call a breakdown service.
The mechanic opens the bonnet, emerging a few seconds later. "Try it now" he says, and the car immediately starts.
He smiles and says, "It's OK, it just needed a reset."
Imagine your roof is leaking and you call a roofing expert.
He climbs up into your roof-space, returning a few minutes later to advise "It'll be OK now, it just needed a reset".
These may sound like preposterous scenarios, but I have to ask:
Why, if we would not put up with such performance from these kinds of products, do we put up with it from computers, routers, phones, and such-like?
The mechanic opens the bonnet, emerging a few seconds later. "Try it now" he says, and the car immediately starts.
He smiles and says, "It's OK, it just needed a reset."
Imagine your roof is leaking and you call a roofing expert.
He climbs up into your roof-space, returning a few minutes later to advise "It'll be OK now, it just needed a reset".
These may sound like preposterous scenarios, but I have to ask:
Why, if we would not put up with such performance from these kinds of products, do we put up with it from computers, routers, phones, and such-like?
Well-made electronic products that work reliably at least have a reset button hidden in a recess, or in a discreet hole accessed with a pin, implying an intention that it will seldom be needed, but devices like the one at Left have the barefaced cheek to present us with a product which is trying to make a feature of a failing; the Reset button has achieved a prominence almost equal to that of the indispensable Power Button.
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How have these manufacturers managed to get people to accept products
that periodically just stop working?
If the product "just needs a reset", and is so smart, why doesn't it reset itself?
Why doesn't a little mechanical hand emerge and press it's own reset button?