ABSTRACT
Where to start? It is with some fear and not a little trembling that I open a new file on consumer value, even though I’m writing this longhand and only pretending to compose direct to screen like every self-respecting scholar nowadays. Jeez, they’re at it everywhere, aren’t they?—in restaurants, on trains, in airport departure lounges and even on trans-Atlantic flights, seemingly oblivious to the damage that their digital prestidigitation may be doing to the navigational equipment or the fact that all 400 of us may plunge screaming to our doom because some bloody economist, ethnographer or Goddam marketing researcher can’t wait to download their earthshattering thoughts onto a notebook, powerbook, laptop, palmtop or the latest Wild Bill Gatesian gizmo that enables them to write and surf the net simultaneously whilst cruising at an altitude of 35,000 feet. What a postmodern way to go. Word (for Windows) and the World (Wide Web) finally collide. Il n’y a pas de hors Microsoft.1
