> As an example I use a lot, congress critters use a formula to get the pulse of the constituents. If they receive a hand written letter (yes, I learned about the formula when people did that), they'd multiply that by some factor knowing that if one person felt strongly enough to send in a letter that others also felt that way. Phone calls were the same, but with a smaller multiplier as it was easier to make a call that write a letter followed by emails with yet a smaller mult. This was all well before social media, but I'd imagine searching tweets would give a pretty good indicator as well now. A single tweet would be worth something, but tweets with lots of retweets and heavy comment activity would be something else. Even if a tweet is something done pretty much on a whim with little thought behind it like that letter.

This is an extremely popular bit of apocrypha that's repeated ad nauseam across reddit. It's more like a political truism than an observation on the behaviors of the silent majority re: Apple users.

> The silent majority is called that for a reason. It doesn't mean they are happy or content. Ignore that reality at your own peril.

It doesn't mean they're discontent either.

> This is an extremely popular bit of apocrypha that's repeated ad nauseam across reddit.

This is so tiring of a lame excuse. I don't use reddit, so I don't know what that has to do with anything. As a high school kid, I volunteered with my congressman in his office and heard this directly from people working in the office. You can try to snipe anonymously from the internet, but it doesn't make me wrong.