"..What happened to customer support?.."
Two words - planned obsolescence
It would appear that the question is rhetorical as opposed to being literal. For some reason, the software companies do not want to support their old software. Unlike in the automotive service business where service sales ultimately is a very good and profitable business, it seems that the computer software people seem to think that the only way they can make money is to sell new software.
One would think that "legacy" service (manuals, disks, whatever) would simply be 'free money" - after all, once you make a PDF or a CDROM, you can digitally copy stuff for pennies - and sell it for dollars. Then, however, if people keep using the "old stuff", they sort of run out of a market for their new bloatware stuff.
Whatever happened to service? It went the way of TV and radio repair people once we turned into a use and toss it society.. |