Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Bad Comparison

So why is it that high-speed internet providers always talk about how much faster they are than dial-up?

"Up to 5 times faster than dial-up!"

"Over 20 times faster than dial-up!"

You know, as though this is a cool thing. Come on, some carrier pigeons are faster than dial-up. I think I know of one person who uses the internet in any capacity and does it with dial-up.

On those occasions when, say, Coke and Pepsi decide to actually talk comparisons, they always talk about how "this many people in some taste test prefered the taste of Pepsi to Coke" or "Coke over Pepsi" or whatever. They're not saying "65% of those surveyed prefered the taste of Coke to a glass of sewer water."

You people are comparing apples and piano wire.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

this is like EVERY car insurance commercial claims they can "save you hundreds of dollars"... if each one can save you hundreds, who is charging hundreds more? it doesn't make any sense at all!

is there a small shack somewhere in the desert with a old rusty slow phone line and a beat-up truck that's insured for thousands of dollars??

the mole

Major Rakal said...

What else can you do when there's no significant difference between the competing broadband options. "Up to 5% faster than DSL!" wouldn't be too impressive. "Up to 5% slower than cable!" would be less so.