I released today, that there are some really whiny bastards out there. You know the kind I’m talking about, the kind that complain for the sake of complaining.
Take for example, this page at digg.com.
In 2005, Linksys modified the hardware of their popular WRT54G line of broadband routers. The new hardware was cheaper, and faster, but had one flaw: The old hardware could be flashed with third party linux firmware, the new hardware could not.
This caused somewhat of an uproar in many communities. People LIKED the old WRT54G’s. They didn’t care that they were invalidating their warranties, they just wanted awesome routers that cost $70 not $700. And so sales dropped. And dropped. And dropped. Linksys saw this, and quickly re-released the previous generation router as a new WRT54GL. The L we assume, is for Linux. So far so good.
Enter the whiny bastards. “The WRT54GL is a rip off!” “It’s just the old router repackaged and costs more!” “Boycott Linksys!”.
Yeah. Whatever. People, grow the fuck up. Linksys is doing you a HUGE favour. They don’t hav to sell the WRT54GL at all. So they marked the price up $10. OH NO! TEN WHOLE DOLLARS! What’s your problem? Are you going to miss out on your sucky sucky for this week?
If the WRT54GL’s price went up to $100, I would still buy it. Why? Because it is STILL the best linux router on the market. Sure, CPU and space is limited, but it works so well, and it’s packaged up in a nice, pretty case. Frankly, you just can’t beat it.
$150? I might still consider it. Just so that I can hack it to do whatever I feel like. But that’s just cool.
Linksys: Thank you.