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The Revolt Against Bloat
Some new computer buyers are just so sick of tons of trialware bloat on new machines they are paying the store techs to immediately remove it. This runs directly up against the wishes of the big computer makers, because installing all that trialware is close to being all the profit they make on the machines, as they get paid to install that software by the vendors.
"You'd be surprised how often consumers tell us to get rid of it," said Robert Stephens, the head of Geek Squad, the technical support division of Best Buy that removes the software. He declined to say how many people were paying for the service, but said that "it's going to increase in popularity." ed.z.: all I have to say is....HAHAHAHAHAHA! This is like the missile anti anti anti missile deal! I think it is cool people are finally getting fed up enough with crapware that they just say no. They so much do NOT want that crap they are willing to pay the same 30 bucks to remove it as BigCompuCo makes installing it! This should be a big fat clue to those companies on where software is, and where it is headed. Bloat for bloat's sake is just silly. And it is only a short step there to not running any paid bloat at all, just getting a barebones machine that works, then choosing what THEY want, not what some outside corporation *insists* they should want. The same techs could be saying to the customers, "OK, you have the machine you want, now look at this menu, tell us what you want, you get the custom install". That would be some decent initial customer service.