Boyink! - Spring Forward on the Web

http://whatdoiknow.org/archives/001075.shtml
But launching a public web site that only supports one particular type of browser, and operating system (Mac IE doesn’t work either), is asinine, and astonishingly shortsighted.

BuyMusic.com is taking alot of heat for building a website that only works in IE on Windows.  Personally, I don’t subscribe to the notion that every site on the web has a pre-determined responsibility to be operational on every browser and operating system is use. 

BuyMusic.com is’t a “public website”.  It’s a business that operates in the web.  The only responsibility it has is to make a profit.  If the powers-that-be at BuyMusic.com did the cost-justification and found that supporting anything past IE/Windows wouldn’t be profitable, then their decision is reasonable.

Comments are closed, but you can read the comments other people left.

1. sparky on August 09, 2003

   Is it really that much harder to make good code that does work in all browsers?  Current browsers at least, backwards compatibility isn’t too much a concern for me really.

   But you’re right.  It’s their site, they can do what they want.  Can’t argue that point.

2. Michael Boyink (Author) on August 09, 2003

   I *think* they may be using an ActiveX control to provide samples, and outside IE those get wiggy.

   It can still be a challenge on a large site - you’d shake your head at the amount of QA some large companies do on their sites to ensure functionality in all the different browser/os combinations.  Past just the time investment, they also had to maintain all those combinations on PC’s in a lab that takes up floor space and goes unused most of the time.  Seems like they found it cost them $5K/year just to maintain one of those PC’s!

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