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Best Buy Unapologetic About Charging For PS3 Firmware Updates
donniebaseball23 writes "After discovering that electronics retailer Best Buy was charging ignorant customers $30 for the 'service' of installing updated firmware on PS3s, IndustryGamers got word from the company on its policy. Best Buy sees no problem with charging for this convenience, even though it's something Sony provides to PS3 owners completely free. 'While many gamers can handle firmware upgrades easily on their own, those customers who do want help can get it from Geek Squad, and we continue to evaluate this offering to ensure it meets their needs. The service goes beyond a firmware updates, and includes user account setup, parental control setup and other components,' a representative said."
How is this different from paying for sex.......you could masturbate for free instead of blowing (pun intended) a few bills on a prostitute
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It's a couple orders of magnitude below most of your list. There's zero skill involved. The PS3 says there's an update required to connect to PSN. Would you like to install it? It's literally 2-3 button presses.
Perhaps after setting up networking, but not all PS3s are configured for networking.
In New Zealand it is *illegal* to advertise one price and then charge another when the customer is in the store. Shame the US is so pwned by corporate interests that you have every right to murder each other with unlicensed automatic weapons (people can legitimately buy 50 caliber M2 machine guns, wtf!?) but have nothing protects customers from rip-off "bait n' switch" with a something akin to the Kiwi "Consumer Guarantees Act" and "Fair Trading Act"s.
Why not just admit that you work for Best Buy? You've posted nine comments in this topic, all defending the practice from various angles. Hell, four of your posts make the same point about network connectivity, which whilst valid, is most definitely in the very small minority - "people who buy a state of the art console, buy games that are as old as the console's original release date (and hence have no firmware), and / or have dialup Internet, or less". Okay then...
You've gotta love circular logic and intentionally ignoring the obvious to bolster your argument.
What it boils down to is it sensless to argue with you about this because the ethics, or lack thereof are obvious to anyone with a proper sense of right or wrong.
That's hilarious! You talk about circular logic, and then make your argument with the ultimate statement of circular logic - "I know what's right and wrong." Do you understand anything at all about ethics or philosophy? Ethics is meaningless unless you construct your ethical framework first. Simply declaring something right or wrong is outside the realm of ethics.
For example: "Abortion is unethical because anyone with a proper sense of right and wrong knows that abortion is wrong." Do you agree or disagree with that statement? How about "A woman should have the right to have an abortion, because anyone with a proper sense of right and wrong knows that a woman has the right to choose." Any better?
So if it makes you feel any better you can declare personal victory that you've successfully explained away any doubt that this type of practice is completely ok and should continue.
I never said anything of the kind. Personally, I think this practice is scummy and should not continue. But that's not an argument of ethics.
Those of us with a sense of right or wrong, and a sense of how you create credibility and trust with customers long term, will continue along our obviously naive belief systems.
More hilarity! Obviously, someone who has a different perspective on things than you has "no sense of right and wrong" and is naive. Personally, I think your interpretation of things is much more naive.
... and then they built the supercollider.
I think you are mixing up capitalism with ethics.
Capitalism is an ethic, or a system of ethics, just as Communism or Libertarianism are. Why would you think it is not?
... and then they built the supercollider.