I mean appeal to authority in particular is a fallacy in structured, formal debate, where your argument is supposed to stand on its own because all that's being evaluated is the participants' ability to reason and skill in rhetoric. It doesn't apply nearly as well to standard discussion.
Unless it's narrower than I think of it. If "Appeal to authority" is supposed to only refer to authorities that aren't subject matter experts, and "appeal to expertise" wouldn't fall under the fallacy then I suppose it's a reasonable shorthand for "Oprah doesn't actually have much more credibility on Mad Cow Disease than, say, I do"
I think the gap here, in standard discussion, is that something involving a rhetorical fallacy doesn’t make it _wrong_.
At any number of points in my career, I’ve argued in favor of using a technology because the majority of the industry is using it. On one hand, that’s a bandwagon fallacy. But it’s also often the right answer: there are actual benefits in technology of using something with an active userbase, where new hires are likely to have familiarity, etc.
Likewise, appeals to authority are not fatal to a suggestion. If we’re debating two courses of action and I say “well $smart_engineer generally recommends option A”, that’s meaningful. But it’s still an appeal to authority. In a good discussion, the follow-up question would be “why do they generally recommend that?”, which is how you determine if the authority’s wisdom applies to your situation.
its not a bandwagon fallacy then... the fallacy part only applies if it has no causal influence on the point.
In the case of software, popularity causally equals tools. So it is not a fallacy. Someone deciding to make their railroad the same guage as everyone else is not a fallacy. The fallacy would be if everyone in the town said "we should make it different" and you ask why, and people respond "because thats what everyone else thinks, and the mayor"
Unless it's narrower than I think of it. If "Appeal to authority" is supposed to only refer to authorities that aren't subject matter experts, and "appeal to expertise" wouldn't fall under the fallacy then I suppose it's a reasonable shorthand for "Oprah doesn't actually have much more credibility on Mad Cow Disease than, say, I do"