It’s a war I tell you. From where you purchase your media content to what apps become entwined into your day to day life. Regardless of which ecosystem you are in, it has to work for you. However, the war part of the equation, comes in the form of various hive minded worshipers of only one ecosystem. God forbid you find yourself in the wrong ecosystem, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. If you do, you may find yourself subject to any number of “flame-on” insults and tirades on why your choice is wrong and how your choice is completely lacking where it comes to the hive mind choice.
I say break from these damnable chains and hive mind-like shackles and enjoy the ecosystem you have chosen. If it works for you then it works. Let me write that out one more time, “If the ecosystem you choose, works for you, then it works.”
Normally the ecosystem battles take place on social networks, tech forums, or comments to tech pieces. It generally involves a person making a subjective statement and then that person being blasted by fifty others who disagree. Those fifty others of course are also making completely subjective statements to their own experience. Their experience’s however, should mean nothing to you if you already enjoy your own experience.
You can be a fanboy of something without blasting, mocking, insulting, and various other forms of “ing” of a competing technology. You can love the ecosystem you are in while giving praise to the tech that competing ecosystems are putting forth. Likewise, you should also be able to criticize the ecosystem you are in without being chastised for doing so. If no one speaks out in their own ecosystem, then how is the tech company who created it going to know something is not right? It’s important for tech companies to listen to the critics, even more so than listening to the fanboys who heap praise and tag lines such as “(Insert Tech Company Name Here) can do no wrong… ever… seriously… ever!”
The Ecosystem Wars are like the Super Bowl to the fanboys. It comes down to choosing their team and then taking the field. They are tech lovers, but tech lovers with blindfolds on. Regardless of how cool something from a competing tech company could be, they will vilify it to no end. So I would ask that you as a tech lover take off the blindfolds and try to look on tech with impartial eyes. That doesn’t mean you need to alter your chosen ecosystem, it just means that you should look at the upsides to the various ecosystems out there and don’t forget to criticize your own just as much as you do the others. Just realize that all of these ecosystems create competition and competition brings more innovation and also keeps the prices down for the consumer.
And another thing, if someone has chosen an ecosystem that is not the one you have chosen, you should understand that what they have chosen is working for them. So don’t go on an attack to try and convert them. Hitting them with subjective opinion after opinion is just rude anyway. You can easily point out how you get use from your ecosystem without pulling out the pitchforks for theirs. It’s called tact. It also allows the other person the ability to see your subjective experience and compare it with theirs. Then they can choose what is best for themselves.
One final note. When a person posts an opinion about specific tech or a specific ecosystem on a social network or a forum, please do not be rude and post a reply that is 100% off topic and in the form of why your tech or ecosystem is better. I see this all the time and I honestly believe that these people are just trying to convince themselves that their ecosystem is better because they are not convinced of it themselves. It comes off as insecure and just plain rude to the person who posted the specific topic.
I don’t expect the Ecosystem Wars to end anytime soon. Without any set standards between the titans vying for your consumer dollar, things will get much more segregated down this current tech road. We as techies though can at least be civilized with one another and not become addicted to the “show.” Besides, there is way too much cool tech out there to not want to play around with it all. So choose the tech ecosystem that works for you and keep an open mind about the rest. Cool tech is everywhere and it works differently for everybody.
Jason Falter is a contributing writer here and also runs his own site you can find here codecrackx15
Last Updated on November 27, 2018.
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