Back in 2004, I picked a cause and decided that it would be the hill I would die on. That cause was "never use a specific brand name when talking about a class of products or services."
At this point, people will think I'm making a statement if I stop doing it, so I'll be doing that for the rest of my life, I guess. It's not so bad, except I can never tell someone to Google something.
@kaye Interesting! What's the motivation behind this?
@adeptomega It's an implicit denial of alternatives. Or rather, it's part of a pattern that implies that the concept of "having alternatives" doesn't apply. Like using the stock browser of your OS because it suggests that "visiting the Web" just works like that. Or tricking you into using your Android phone's stock camera/gallery/music apps, complete with Google's usual data-harvesting schemes, because they ship with the OS and are set up to feel like it's something the phone "just does."
@adeptomega Basically, I insist on saying "smart glasses" and "search engine" and "messenger application" instead of Google Glass/Google/WhatsApp because I feel that it's important for me to emphasize that the specific products are part of a *class* of things. It's pedantic, I know.
