Or at least thats how Google looks to the public these days. If thats the perception they want, they got it.

I think this Buzz privacy fiasco is an historic lesson in the convergence of humanity and software and the lesson learned is that privacy of personal relationships should be a fundamental right

So, this kind of behavior isn't news to me. In fact, I've tried often to convince the tech-savvy that most users have problems like this, and I've never been all that successful. The RWW "Facebook login" is great from this standpoint, because suddenly a bunch of web programmers have gotten this glimpse of the world outside their bubble, and have collectively gone, "Oh."

Now let's talk about the kind of people these people are. I've noticed a number of comments about their illiteracy, or implying that they must not be paying attention. While there might be a kernel of truth to that, I'd like you to know that most of these are good people, and many of them have accomplished more in their lives than many of the denigrating commenters ever will.

For example, one of my clients is an aesthetician that runs a relatively high-tech place. Her angle comes from surviving cancer, and advocating healthier products for people looking for that kind of stuff. She runs a busy brick-and-mortar shop, bootstrapped it from the ground up, works obscene amounts of hours, has one kid in college abroad in Japan, and another kid finishing high school soon. She's a hell of a woman.

But, she's totally lost on Facebook. Someone told her she should do it, so she is, and we're helping her. She can't manage her email list, and has trouble doing mail merges, so we help her with that too. When a computer puts an error up on the screen, she doesn't read it, analyze it, research it, figure it out; she simply concludes that the computer has had a problem, and she needs help with it.

She's certainly not dumb, but you wouldn't know it by her computer skills.

My weakness is cooking. I'm a reasonably competent programmer, literate, and I can fix cars, etc., but I'm a laughably terrible cook.

More than likely, everyone here has at least one subject which is so alien, so foreign, that they just won't "get" it, no matter how simple it becomes.

While true, I'll still be prejudiced against people that leave comments like (#14):

wtf is this bullshttttttttttt all about. can i get n plzzzzzzzzz

and I'll actively argue that many who spell and act this poorly in public are probably at least as much of a detriment to society as they are a boon. Most of those smart-but-not-tech-savvy people can at least communicate properly.

edit: the comment prejudice applies to bashers too. Poor behavior is poor behavior.