The PC - An entertainment device

Just found this on Jeff Nolan's blog: Dell gives buyers the no-crap option

I bought my mom a HP desktop computer a while back and when I plugged it in for her I could not believe how many marketing icons were preloaded. I literally spent an hour cleaning it up figuring that the more stuff that was there the more confusion it would create. A few months later we had to send it back to HP because of a hard drive failure and went it (finally) came back… yep, all the preloaded crap was back with it.

Apparently PC manufactures think of their customer as a person who buys the machine as some kind of additional TV set, an entertainment device. People should consume, not use. They should buy, enjoy for a short moment, throw it away and buy the next fancy gadget. This sounds like an intriguing recipe for higher profits for the manufactures. But what about the long run? Doesn't that lead eventually to ever dropping margins and ever increasing product cycles?

Back in the 80's and early 90's "some dreamers" thought of the PC, and followed by the Internet, as devices that will help to increase people's knowledge. It appears that the manufacturers of those "entertainment PCs" know very well what the masses want. Looks like they aren't that much interested in gaining more knowledge but more fun instead.