Business Model: Cause Customers Trouble, Make Them Pay to Fix

CNet: Security gripes? Microsoft feels your pain. It's not news to Microsoft that many, if not most, average Windows users have gripes about their PC experiences. In response, the software company is unveiling on Friday a new subscription-based computer fix-it service, aimed at automatically patching security holes, blocking viruses and spyware, and generally automating the chores of maintaining a computer's health.

I would have written a different beginning to this story, roughly as follows:

In winning and sustaining its monopoly in the operating system and browser markets, Microsoft has exposed countless millions of people to woes from security holes that have become conduits for viruses, worms and spyware. Now the software giant is planning to charge its captive customers to clean up the mess it created.

Comments

[j]

Yes. As I posted elsewhere:

It should be FREE!!!! They got us into this messssssssss...

[Smack]

Words like 'unveiling' do convey ba-ba sheeplike optimism, don't they?

[David Moles]

This reminds me of nothing so much as those ads I used to see on TV as a kid with the jingle: "Get that great GM feeling -- with genuine GM parts!"