3. Get Ahead Of The Joneses

There's nothing quite like the satisfaction of being the first in your neighborhood with technology that is sure to make your neighbors envious. Or at least that will make them sit up and take notice.

I hear that this draft 11n stuff is so advanced that it can wipe out any older stuff that gets in its way. How cool is that? That'll teach those nervous Nellies with their wait-and-see attitudes. Wimps!

Standards, Schmandards

What's the good of having products meet a standard if it takes so darn long? I mean, we have better things to do than wait for a bunch of eggheads to stroke their chins and ponder difficult problems, don't we? I mean, who appointed them the boss of everyone?

Aren't companies much better at figuring out what works best? And the bigger the company the better! Intel and Microsoft and Cisco didn't get to where they are today by waiting for standards, and they've done all right.

The consumer is much smarter at figuring this stuff out, anyway. After all, we get a whole lot of help from advertising, don't we? And how about the information that they put on the outside of attractively designed product packaging? It tells us everything we need to know, doesn't it, because it's written by folks in those big, smart companies.

Besides, choice is good. And lots of stuff to choose from is even better. Especially when the stuff that people end up not choosing finds its way onto eBay where you can get it really cheap.

Let Freedom Ring!

So folks, can we all stop the "don't buy draft 11n" editorials and accusing fine, upstanding American companies of behavior that might be considered worthy of legal intervention in technology backwaters like France or Belgium or any of those places where people have much more vacation time than we do... and even use it!

America got to be the nation it is today through the powers of the free market, however messy, wasteful and unfair to some that it may seem. So it's your duty to get out there and keep the wheels of progress turning ever more swiftly. Buy draft 11n products early and buy them often! And remember that it's the early bird that gets the bugs, oops, worm.

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