(Agree - no reason not to name names at this point).

Question is - work with whom? While I personally find patronising material off-putting, I suspect that may be my inner geekness showing, and "normal" people don't mind as much.

One example is the "XXX for dummies" book series. No matter how interesting the XXX was (Quantum Physics! Neurosurgery), I could never bring myself to buy those books - I was mentally bristling "Oy, who are you calling a dummy?". Millions do, though.

Another example - I roll my eyes quite a lot at some of Evernote's material ("Oh I can use a note and clipping service to collect cooking recipes from the Internet? You don't say! Good thing you told me of else it would have never crossed my mind! Tag S for Sarcasm!") - but I suspect they are very successful for doing that.

My gut reaction is that you put off fewer people than you attract - but I can't prove it.

> One example is the "XXX for dummies" book series. No matter how interesting the XXX was (Quantum Physics! Neurosurgery), I could never bring myself to buy those books - I was mentally bristling "Oy, who are you calling a dummy?".

Reactions to those titles are interesting.

I certainly have some of that "inner geekness" you mention, but I don't have any problem with the "dummies" series. My thinking is that, before such books were produced, if you wanted to learn, say, plumbing or fishing or football or beer making, then you learned from your parents while growing up, or you learned by working with an experienced practitioner, or else you never learned them. But now we have introductory material for adults, aimed at bringing them to the point where they can enjoy or be productive at some activity. I think it's great.

On the other hand, someone I know, whom I would consider rather less geeky than myself, feels very insulted by those titles.