A Flash In The Pan
I’ve always had a hate/hate relationship with Macromedia’s web site. On three different occasions I’ve gone to their online store, credit card in hand, wanting to buy their products….and on three different occasions they have steadfastly refused to sell me anything.
There is something about my credit card that their online store simply doesn’t like. This is the same credit card that I’ve used for every online purchase I’ve made for the past three years without incident. This is the same credit card that I have used to buy products from Adobe, their staunchest competitor. But they will have none of it.
Me: Hi, I’m trying to buy an upgrade copy of Macromedia Flash MX from your online store and it doesn’t seem to like my credit card. I’m a little pressed for time because I was hoping to purchase and download the product by the end of the day today. Today is the end of our fiscal quarter and I was just informed that there’s just enough money left in this quarter’s budget for me to buy the upgrade. The problem is that I need to have the product in hand by 5:00pm tonight so it can be counted against this quarter’s budget.
Them: I’d be happy to take your credit card information and ship you the product.
Me: That’s probably not going to work since I need the product today.
Them: You can visit our online store and download the product immediately.
Me: Well, I already tried that, but it won’t accept my credit card information. Can I just give you my credit card information and then go to the online store and download the product?
Them: No, that’s impossible. We aren’t connected to the online store in any way. All I can do is ship you the product.
Me: So there’s no way I can get the product by the end of the day today?
Them: Well, sir, like I mentioned before, you can go to our online store and download the product immediately.
Me: Well, like I mentioned before, that’s not working. Is there a number I can call to talk to someone at the online store?
Them: That would be this number, sir.
Me: But I thought you just said that you didn’t have any connection to the online store.
Them: We don’t, but we handle all of their phone calls.
Me: <pause> <click>
But despite their concerted effort to keep me as a non-customer, I have been able to circumvent their anti-purchasing systems long enough to become the owner of two of their products. Unfortunately, I still have to visit the Macromedia web site on occasion to check for product updates.
In fact, I went to their site last night to do just that. I remembered reading that Macromedia had recently redesigned its web site to use Flash technology almost exclusively. The redesign had caused a bit of a flap in the Mac community because it wouldn’t work with Apple’s new Safari browser, so I knew in advance (as a Safari user) that it was probably going to be an “interesting” experience. Sure enough, even though the home page loaded fine in Safari, as soon as I clicked on “Downloads” I was presented with a screen listing “Macromedia.com’s Site Requirements”:
You may not have everything you need to view certain sections of macromedia.com. To address issues with your browser or media preferences see below:
Please Use a Supported Browser
Your browser (Safari) is not supported by macromedia.com. For the best possible experience, please use the latest version of one of the following browsers:
- Microsoft Internet Explorer
- Netscape Navigator
- AOL
No offense, folks, but if I have to use AOL “for the best possible experience,” this is probably an experience not worth having.
Anyway, I killed Safari and launched Camino (ne Chimera) and pulled up the Macromedia site again. This time I didn’t get a message telling me to use a different browser. Instead, I didn’t get anything. It got to the the ever-popular “Assembling Interface Components…” portion of the end-user experience and froze. So, I exited out of Camino and pulled up Internet Explorer (ugh). By this time, I was getting rather anxious to see what I had been missing with the other browsers.
What I was missing was a lovely “Loading Navigation…” message, followed by that ever-popular “Assembling Interface Components…” tidbit, which lead in turn to the the crowd-pleasing “Processing Content…” pronouncement. While I appreciated them keeping me up to date on what was going on behind the curtain all that time, their real purpose was not to provide useful information to me, the end-user. How do I know? Because I’ve tried to fool people with those same “progress indicators” myself. “Progress indicators” are really just small, shiny objects meant to distract end-users from the fact that what they really came to see is still loading like molasses in the background. (This wouldn’t have been nearly so annoying if I had been using a dial-up connection, but I was at home using my semi-blazing-fast DSL connection.)
Finally, after over a minute of these highly-informative “nonprogress indicators,” I was presented with a simple list of the 15 Macromedia products for which I could download updates. (That’s right, a one minute wait for a list of products that could have been presented with 1200 bytes of HTML code.) I clicked on the Macromedia Flash MX link and I got another 30 seconds of “Processing Content…”, followed by a Macromedia ID login screen, followed by an Account Details screen, followed by a Survey screen, followed by a Communications Preference Screen.
Good grief! Three browsers, 10 minutes, and 58 mouse clicks later, I just wanted to get it over with. But wait…even though the banner at the top said I was in the “Downloads” area, the only downloads available were Macromedia’s free trials. So, I hit the Back button to wend my way back the way I came, but a single click on the back button took me clear back to the home page. I could have sworn I had to go through five rings of hell to get to where I was, but since it was obvious by this time that I was not on a “real” web site I probably shouldn’t have expected it to act like a “real” web site and let me follow my breadcrumbs back.
It didn’t matter at that point, anyway. I’d already given up. All I wanted was a simple download and I’d gone through three browsers, 10 minutes, and 59 mouse clicks just to not find it. I don’t have the time, bandwidth, or patience for rubbish like this. [Note: OK, I do have the time and bandwidth for rubbish like this, but still…]
Macromedia is trying very hard to convince web developers that old web standards just don’t cut it anymore. They believe that in order for the Internet to make the next quantum leap, web developers need to abandon the boring, static world of HTML and embrace the rich, immersive world of Flash technology. And what will we get in return? Apparently browser incompatibilities, usability nightmares, and glacial performance…in a proprietary format. Gee, where do I sign up? Oh, that’s right….I can’t. They won’t take my credit card.
Comments
Pete
If you ask me, it all started going wrong when they introduced the <font> tag.
dan
Yes sir! The evil empires are, indeed, getting eviler! Vive le beurocracy!!!
P.S. Good post, Bugs! It was long, and about something that doesn’t interrest me all that much, and yet it still held my ADD-hindered attention. You’re one clever bunny.