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Originally Posted by superhero
I totally agree but I still think the venting and frustration being felt is pervasive. This isn't a case were people are trolling and throwing out unfounded complaints. It appears the complaints are genuine and I find them extremely helpful in making purchasing decisions.
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I'm sure the complaints are genuine, I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. I'm just saying that people are a lot more likely to post if they are upset than if they are happy, it doesn't mean that what you see online reflects the total customer base. Seeing a large percentage of upset people like that isn't necessarily an indication of a pervasive problem. It's just that people who are happy and don't have any complaints aren't going to be as vocal.
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Also, in this type of active group I would expect those who have an Iliad to counterpoint the negative posts and those have been far and few.
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There use to be a a lot more of them. One of the problems you sometimes see is that the people who are angry and have a negative opinion of a company may tend to get upset when there are others who disagree with them. It's very noticeable over on the iRex forums. In years past the tone of the discussions on there was much different, and you did see counterpoints and opinions from both sides. Over time though, a lot of the people who had positive attitudes ended up leaving because they got sick and tired of an upset vocal minority that would attack anyone who had differing opinions. I don't think most of them really did it on purpose, they were just frustrated and lashed out, but it got bad enough a while ago that most of the people making the type of counterpoints you're asking about gave up and left. It's all part of the same human nature. People who are happy aren't as motivated to stay when their opinions are met with criticism.
I've seen that happen with other forums as well. It's unfortunate, but sometimes that's just the way it turns out. People who don't jump on the bandwagon get driven off. In the long run it hurts everyone, because those who are left don't really hear differing opinions/ideas anymore, which is how we learn.
It's always good to look for opinions from others online when making a decision, but it's usually also a good idea to take them with a grain of salt. The number of people posting online is almost always a very small fraction of the total customer base, and the percentage of the ones online tends to lean heavily towards those who are complaining because of human nature.