The price of "don't ascribe to malice" is that it's trivial to exploit. The most incompetent PR department in the world can have a strict adherent on a leash and barking to their tune inside of 5 minutes.

Courts of law have a good reason to hold high standards of evidence. For everyone else it's just an excuse for laziness. Not that I'm any better, I just don't insist on rationalizing it :-)

I'm now old and cynical enough to understand/believe that the world is run with laziness as the prime heuristic (with secondary heurisitc being "don't die/maintain current level of comfort").

I agree that it's trivial to exploit, but I choose to believe that, in the general case, people/entities are lazier than they are evil. That said, laziness can be in the form of "not taking into account the externalities", which can be indistinguishable from actual malice (which I define as knowingly and/or willfully causing harm).

I still think Lenovo's behaviour in this case is that form of laziness, though my comment above means I'm on the fence.

I tend to suspect you're right about this being a case of malicious laziness. Once the engineers started protesting, middle management decided it was easier to feign ignorance of the problem and push on than to come up with a more legitimate value-add. Laziness-driven, but (I suspect) also entirely malicious in the sense that if you had given anyone in the room a choice between receiving a laptop with their crapware and a laptop without, they would have chosen the latter without the slightest bit of hesitation.

Then again, I may be underestimating management's ability to drink their own kool-aid.

thoughtlessness and callousness are far more common sources of evil than either incompetence or malice strictly defined. "People who don't care if I live or I die".

I realize now I've been mixing up "incompetence" "ignorance" and "laziness". I used "ignorance" in the maxim in my first comment where it's actually "incompetence", and then discussed "laziness" in my followup comment. Sorry.

FWIW, I agree with you: I put thoughtlessness and callousness fall under the laziness umbrella.

My concern when making a purchase is whether the purchase will be good for me. I would definitely wipe whatever laptop I purchased, so this story is interesting and embarrassing for Lenovo but has no effect on my own purchases which are driven by what will function well for my preferences (like good Linux support and not requiring me to use a trackpad)

Given the general sliminess in computer, phone and software companies, there is no "pure" option except to buy some ancient computer and never use it on the internet, like RMS. This isn't acceptable to me. I will buy what serves my own needs, and you can do whatever you want.

If Lenovo are willing to compromise user software for some perceived corporate benefit, what's to say that they're not going to compromise hardware, firmware, bootloaders, recovery tools, etc.?

I ask that from a Lenovo Thinkpad T520i, one of a half-dozen or more I've owned or used over 15+ years, and absolutely my preferred mobile hardware over that period.

Isn't Apple the least slimy in this regard?

I've been eyeing Macbooks forever, but as far as I know Linux support has never been great, despite the prevalence of their hardware. System76 sells some good Linux-oriented laptops. Some of Dell's laptops are Ubuntu-certified. I had a good HP Elitebook via work about 6 years ago, but everything I've tried of theirs over the past couple years has been throw-out-the-window bad.

Still trying to wipe it under carpet when the problems obviously are far from "theoretical concerns" isn't really reflecting well on Lenovo's image.

It's like the opposite of damage control.