Charles Petzold

Recently while searching for a book on Bookshop.org, I was interrupted by a popup apparently generated by Microsoft Edge advising me of an alternative:

Excuse me? The assumption that I need help buying a book is the biggest insult I’ve encountered on Windows since the days of Clippy.

A further insult is the implication that I make buying decisions based solely on price. There might be numerous reasons why I choose one retailer over another for my book purchases. I might prefer a retailer that focuses solely on books, or a retailer that is not a large chain. More generally, I might make a decision based on the company’s carbon footprint, or perhaps their reputation in paying fair wages, or what political candidates and movements they support, or whether the CEO uses his wealth to launch himself into space.

Of course, these concepts are entirely beyond the scope of Edge’s braindead algorithm that apparently knows only whether one number is larger than another.