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Saturday, November 1, 2003

suing customers as a model

a couple weeks ago, i ran across an article from wharton describing the trouble with suing customers as a business model. i left myself a note to come back to it at some point, but life intervened, and in the meantime, i posted a “business model of the hour” based on bounties and lawyers.

the wharton article, by g. richard shell goes into some detail about an old attempt to sue customers into submission by the ford motor company.

i don’t have much to add to the article, but it echoes some important themes that i’ve been (subconsciously?) discussing here with regard to diebold and sunncomm. the theme is “lawyers make exceptionally poor policymakers.” just because you can make a case doesn’t mean you should pursue a case.

i tried to hint here that we’re all liable for something, so be careful where you throw stones. the business world is getting more and more transparent, and those walls keeping you out of court might just be made of glass.

worse, while you’re busy feeding lawyers (and putting their children through law school), the rest of us are applying our resources to strategic problems, and eventually we will eat your lunch. when you go for the lawsuits, especially against customers, you’ve shown your hand – now we know you don’t have a better widget, and we know you’ve traded long-term strategy for short-term tactics.

posted by roj at 5:54 am