Return of the 80th Percentile

J. Kevin Tumlinson

Some time ago I wrote about my frustration with what I call “the 80 th Percentile.” This is the group that, unfortunately, has all the power in our country. They are the ones responsible for “Dude, Where's my Car?” They are the group that brought us such wonders as VHS tape (there were other, far better formats out there, but people wanted “cheap”). The 80 th Percentile is the reason I can't buy a quality piece of audio/video or home entertainment equipment unless I want to drop a huge wad of cash.

The mentality goes like this – the “80 th 's” want the same things I want, but they want it cheap and simple. That doesn't sound so bad, right? Unfortunately, manufacturers hear these pleas and the result is, for example, a DVD player that costs only $45 dollars but has no features whatsoever. There are no front panel controls, so everything has to be done with the remote – and God save you if you lose the remote. Now consider the fact that to bring the price down manufacturers use sub-standard, cheap parts, presumably bought in bulk from an overseas company that employs trained chimps as a labor force. The result is a dumb-down, sub-par DVD player that will last approximately three years before it has to be replaced.

Call me a techno snob, but I want a little more for my buck. I want buttons… lots of buttons. I want options that I don't even know how to use. I want to put this thing in my entertainment center and sit in front of it, pretending I'm working for NASA. Whether I'm shelling out $50 or $500, I want what I've purchased to be the best piece of equipment money can buy.

There are two problems with 80 th 's:

One, they don't care about the quality of something as long as they get it at a cheap enough price. That leaves the rest of us, the 20 th Percentile, out in the cold, making due with cheap junk.

Two, they don't want to take the time to learn anything new. Yes, sometimes new advances in technology are overly complicated, difficult to master. Sometimes it takes time to learn new things. What a concept, huh? But it bothers me that there are whole generations of people out there that would rather have the high school kid from next door come over and turn on the computer than actually sit down and learn how to do it themselves. Don't give me this “I'm too old to learn something new” garbage. If you're too old to learn, you might as toss yourself into a hole right now. Life is about learning, and the level of difficulty has nothing to do with it.

But hey, I'm outvoted. I'm one of the guys who has to watch, agonized, as the technology I've dreamt of my whole life slowly gets turned into a one-button box, made to be disposable after a few short years. Doesn't anyone see a problem with that? With all the advancements we've made in technology, are we to believe that building something to last has become an extinct skill? I just bought a new toaster, despite the fact that my old one is only three years old. My mom's toaster was left to her by my grandparents and has been around for fifty years!

It's enough to make me want to just eat my bread cold.