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73

answers:

2

I'm trying to explain to a non technical person, why certain websites (generally ones whose user base exist solely in countries where Microsoft owns more than 99% of the market share) fail to load in Safari or even Firefox (specially on Macs). Such users generally wonder why anyone would even think of buying a Mac, when it doesn't even load websites that PCs can. These websites happen to be ones that they frequently visit and the fact that it does not load, is directly considered to be a fault of the system in question (the Mac). They are generally unaware of the notion of multiple web browsers and are obviously totally unaware of browser standards, etc.

Does anyone have a good analogy to explain why things are the way they are today. And why they might change in future? Maybe some other real world example where not sticking to a existing well defined standard became the norm for society, until they finally realized the loss and that ended up generating industry wide compliance. This need not be technology specific example.

+1  A: 

This may not be the analogy you seek but...

The fact that Mac doesn't display correctly the sites that PC can is actually due to a fault of a system in question. A fault in the marketing sense of the word. If a system is not popular enough to motivate programmers to developer for it, it is that system fault.

Developer Art
Not what I was looking for .. but interesting.
Evitavonni
A: 

IE is like a Trabant, it's the most common browser in the Microsoft bloc.

Pascal Thivent