[wccrawford]

He hits a nerve, though. The evangelism for companies has been rising at an insane rate. Why do people feel the need to defend their favorite company against the encroachment of other companies?

I could understand if their paycheck was on the line. If you write iPod apps and Android starts taking market share, that threatens you. (Assuming you can't also write Android apps, for whatever reason.) But most people just go crazy with no stake at all.

[orangecat]

Arguably Android is a special case: if it's eliminated by patent suits or other means, then every mainstream mobile platform will be locked down. That's bad for freedom and innovation, and makes abusive legislation like the CBDTPA feasible to enforce.

[jonknee]

Humans like choosing sides, however arbitrary. We're tribal at heart.

[rlmw]

http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/articles/apple-fan... is quite interesting in this regard. I know its focused on Apple users, but I wouldn't be surprised if you get similar results by putting evangelists for different platforms through the experiment.

[a-priori]

Hypothesis: Brand loyalty is the new Nationalism.

[jackolas]

When do we get out Congress of Vienna and World Wars on brands/IP then?

[JonnieCache]

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Ingroup