Passive support is interesting and it’s everywhere. It’s why prices can be artificially inflated, why some companies can run roughshod over us and why other companies are able to get away with offering us poor quality service.
For example:
- I know a guy who regularly has lunch at a local place, which he is constantly slamming for it’s high prices. The fact he eats there so often, means it’s hard to take his complaint too seriously.
- We see passive support all the time on Facebook, where people will rant about the Facebook approach to privacy, yet still decide to use the service daily. After all, they enjoy visiting Facebook and it’s where their friends are. The same is true of Google and other services.
- Phone and cable companies see passive support all day every day. Millions of customers decide to carry on paying them each month, even though the service is poor, because it’s easier than switching providers.
Passive support is the child of inaction
The reason passive support is so common, is that it is the natural by-product of inaction. Yes, it’s easy to talk the talk and fail to back it up with action, but we have to be aware that there’s a price to pay for taking the easy route.
The price?
Every time we elect to passively support something, which we claim to be against, we feed the very thing we are opposed to. It acquires our support.
Passive or otherwise, each time we give support to something we are opposed to, we fail to be the change we want to see in the world.