Microsoft and now Facebook, the Bullies of the Technological age.

Last Thursday, I posed the following question on Facebook, "What Internet browser do you currently use?" and got the following results:
  
     3 - for Explorer
     3 - for Chrome
     2 - for Firefox

I had posed this question to see how many people still used Internet Explorer and was surprised that I found a decent portion of my test audience still used it.  If you are familiar with Explorer, you know it as the default browser for all Windows operating systems.  I partially wonder if people still use it, because it came as the standard browser in early computer systems and people have yet to make a switch.

Microsoft was a bully in those early days and felt it a crime to allow any other Internet browser on it's operating systems.  Those times have changed though with Microsoft being more lenient on other Browsers being on there machines.  Though Microsoft is no longer the bully it once was, other such programs have been bullying us the last few years, such as Apple's Safari which is almost a required download when updating Itunes/Quicktime these days.

Do we want these bullying sales tactics and what of the future?  Facebook, is currently taking our privacy away, but if we leave it, such as Tech host Leo Laport  who recently did, will we be able to communicate with our core audience, whose still on it?

Being forced into something, is not a good thing, but in the age of the branded Internet, bulling is almost a given.  Microsoft was the original bully in the early days as it "convinced" us to use Explorer and now Facebook is trying the same tactics by telling us that sharing our information is a good thing. As a salesmen I understand this tactic, but these stakes that Facebook and other Internet companies are playing with our different, by eliminating our options and making us do exactly what they say, they are not just being cruel but straight bullies.