Hating Your Customers

"Product" is one of the four p's of marketing. (Remember those?) You have to have a product that people want.

You also, some need to be reminded, have to design that product so it meets the customer's needs - including the need not to be damaged by the product.

Apparently this is a problem for Sony, as the Houston Chronicle's TechBlog notes. It's quite a tale; a CD whose copy protection not only keeps customers from using the CD in legal ways (which is bad enough) but actually messes with their PCs.

Assaulting your customers is not a strategy for building brand loyalty. No wonder the music industry is having so much trouble. Do they just hate their customers?