The Tech Culture Wars
Somebody here on the 'rums suggested that Josh Topolsky is bias against WP7 because of lack of immersion in the MSFT ecosystem. Josh defended himself on the Vergecast and I think he should be given the benefit of the doubt. However, how can we explain his obviously illogical slamming of the Lumia 900?
The answer: it's cultural.
Back in the 90s tech was all about being smart and having real knowledge about technology. Sometime in the 2000s Apple, Google, and Facebook gained a lot of traction, at the same time that the whole "Web 2.0" craze took off. That time was also gave rise to a peculiar species of young adult know as the "Hipster." If you live in any major metropolitan area you've probably noticed these people. (I live in Iowa City and it's full of Hipsters.) These Hipsters like to pretend to be smart and "nerdy" (Ever notice the trend with big plastic framed glasses?) and are a key demographic for tech companies and so products began to change towards being less utilitarian and more geared towards people who don't possess the intellectual curiosity or skills to understand real technology. Technology used to be about video cards and system tweaks. Now it's about iPads and Twitter and Facebook and Angry Birds.
Josh, Nilay, and Paul Miller are a part of this subculture (even if they don't admit it or even realize it) and so when an "old school" tech company like Microsoft puts out a product and they review it, they literally can't understand what it's about. Meanwhile people like us here in the Tribe are madly in love with it because we don't expect our technology to be glorified toys - we use it to do real work, e.g. Office, SkyDrive, Exchange, Windows integration.
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