Despite the dross, web still useful

The New York Times has an interesting article how consumers are simply replacing Windows PCs that are cluttered with spy/mal/ad-ware. The article Corrupted PCs find new home in dumpsters highlighted a number of cases included an internet industry professional, a doctor (who migrated to the Mac OS X platform), a stockbroker and a bank manager.

What is interesting is from the article is that:

• The internet was still sufficiently useful that decided to use it inspite of their bad experiences. Not one of them questioned the benefit of using online services
  
• Not one of them blamed the poor implementation of security on Windows (ie a product defect), they accepted that using IT equipment is a shoddy experience
• An adequate PC for using the internet is now so cheap that it can be considered a disposable item, getting adequate tech support or software protection is too expensive to make it viable, which has got to be a bitch for people selling more secure products (Longhorn) or security products (Symantec, McAfee etc)
• By inference there seems to be little upside for many consumers in paying a bit extra for a safer computer platform like the Macintosh
• Consumers are putting relatively little value in the data that they have stored on their computer, if they are willing to just skip the old one and buy a new one like a toaster or a microwave