We're talking about people who either don't care about staying current or who intentionally refuse to upgrade (surely Windows prompts people to upgrade to IE7).
Is it worth spending many extra hours on your project – and shelving one feature or dev shortcut after another – in order to tap that market?
The answer can be no.
Do movies studios still put out VHS tapes?
What I'm saying is that if 30% of the users who go to your site (the number is grabbed out of thin air btw.) use IE6 then your site should deal with it. Everything else is like stopping 30% of your customers at the door telling them that they can't spend their money here and will have to go over to you competitor.
I do.
In fact, that's exactly what I said, "I'll take them."
I have absolutely no problem whatsoever pursuing these prospects. I have figured out how to do it without undue limitations on the rest of my business, and I'm glad to have them.
Frankly, I'm a little pleasantly surprised there are so many who would abandon them. Less competition for me. You're obviously one of those who doesn't care about them (why else would you insult them?), so why do you mind if I pursue them?
If 30% of the market still ran Windows 95, would you support them too? I don't think so. There is a time to say a product is obsolete, and IE6 is qualified and should be left out to pasture.
Your answer makes me wonder if you would say the same thing for 25%, or 20%. What about 15%? Or 10% where do you draw the line?
I was making the implication that maybe they aren't as concerned about having the latest greatest in other aspects of technology as well, which would make them a more difficult market to encourage to try your latest greatest.
And in the first place you insulted IE6-wary developers by implying their reasons boil down to laziness. I was offering up what I think are legitimate reasons for ignoring IE6: the huge amount of dev time you save, and the freedom you gain to make use of dev shortcuts.
I think my VHS analogy is apt: you could spend extra time and money publishing new releases to VHS as well as DVD. You would probably even make money from it. But if you research who still primarily uses VHS players I don't think you'll find movie buffs who buy a couple movies every month.
And ultimately I don't see the big deal: I'm not suggesting a developer block IE6 users out of spite and then sit on his ass: I'm saying a developer can choose to ignore IE6 and then have loads of time to devote to making an amazing product.