I think in this case "deserved" was used in the same sense as "warranted," although I realize this doesn't change the main point you're making. What you're get

I think in this case "deserved" was used in the same sense as "warranted," although I realize this doesn't change the main point you're making. What you're getting at is that people can be influenced by factors other than objective truths. I admit that I am someone who tries to avoid making decisions based on word-of-mouth or "reputation," but you can't deny that only considering objective truths takes a lot of work. Sometimes I just want to buy a keyboard, not read and apply "The 50 Tenets of Keyboard Comparison" to find the objectively best (for me) keyboard. It makes sense how this attitude can bleed into decision-making as a whole, even for higher-impact decisions like programming language choice. So I wouldn't discredit (or lower the reputation of ;) ) too much the folks who don't always go by objective truth.