I went to a talk by DHH once, and he said that they consciously try to pick fights with the big boys, and hope they respond. This accomplishes two things:

1) They get a lot of attention, and thus brand recognition

2) They move up into a league of players, where they really don't belong if you look at their business in terms of turnover, employees, etc. Basically its 37signals vs. Don Norman, 37signals vs. Microsoft etc. As if they were equal.

This is an example of that. And its brilliant marketing.

Not really, since Norman started this discussion. Of course they could have chosen to ignore him.

Yes, but their deliberately provocative attitude (dhh more than the company as a whole) brings out the worst in some people :)

Norman just took the bait.

The thing that strikes me as genuine about them is that they also respond, in pretty well-thought out detail, to attacking commenters who are clearly dumb and whom they could simply ignore at no cost. They follow several principles from "How to Win Friends and Influence People" both in their response to Norman and their response to SvN comment trolls.

They've gotten noticeably more amicable in their responses recently.

I really think Jason and DHH know what they are talking about, and put a lot of thought into what they do and say. As Jason said to Walt Mossberg at BIF-3, "Software needs an editor." And like Apple, the people who work at 37signals are the editors.

Bravo to them for having a point of view, and for expressing it. I thin PG would agree:

http://www.paulgraham.com/taste.html

I still think SVN and Norman are in violent agreement. Look at the Southwest Airlines example. I agree with mixmax, this is mostly for marketing purposes. Not that there is anything wrong with that...

This really could be cut down to a few paragraphs (the ones under the heading, "The Southwest Airlines Parallel").

Now if you value simplicity, why write 1000 words of preamble?

37signals' actual attitude is mostly right. That is, listen to your gut before focus groups, and keep things simple even when the horde calls for feature-itis.

The 'problem' is mostly that they (apparently) don't understand how their public statements make them seem. They make themselves look arrogant, even if they're not.

Maybe they don't care about public perception. What Don Norman is saying (in part) is that they will eventually pay a price for this attitude. He may be right.