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Comment by darkarmani | Hacker News Reader

> Using terms like "unwashed masses" and "Joe sixpack" to describe the computer users of working class background where I come from is insulting. Why not just go all the way and them call them "white trash"?

This highlights your confusion. The set of people that have average computer savvy contains all kinds of races and economic standing. It has nothing to do with "working class," wealth, or racial status and everything to do with computer skills.

> You don't have to have a college degree and a six figure income to be discerning about technology.

I'm not going to point any fingers, but I just want to say someone has some massive insecurities.

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> someone has some massive insecurities. That's true. My father and mother were constantly on the verge of going broke, even though they both were employed and worked very hard to save. Medical bills were a real problem. Growing up insecure, it's not surprising I have insecurities. I did manage to get accepted to U.C. Berkeley, although I couldn't finish because my parents or I couldn't afford it and didn't have the skills needed to pursue all the financial aid options.

> The set of people that have average computer savvy contains all kinds of races and economic standing

How is that different from what I'm saying? Saying the "unwashed masses" don't care about what browser they use is inaccurate. That's all.

You still haven't shown it to be inaccurate. It may simply be that the wealthy elite doesn't care either. That'd certainly be my guess.

To the users, browsers are mostly homogeneous, and choosing one over the other incurs in almost no cost (real or of opportunity). It stands to reason that most people (regardless of class) don't have any incentive to care, and therefore they don't.

That's just not the case or Microsoft wouldn't advertise it's "Do not track" feature, people wouldn't switch to Chrome just for incognito mode, and more people would be using IE on their Windows machines because it comes pre-installed. People do care.

So, "Do Not Track", first introduced by firefox and supported in just about all browsers, incognito mode, supported by all browsers (including pre-chrome)...

The market share of IE (and the usage habits of people of both normal and more advanced tech knowledge) points to the fact that people frequently DO use IE (or safari) because it's pre-installed and only change when it just happens (chrome getting installed and set as default by various other installers being a good example)

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