Slashdot Mirror
'Twas the Week Before the Week of Black Friday
theodp writes: It's almost time for America's answer to the Running of the Bulls (YouTube), kids. So, if you're dreaming of a cheap tech Christmas, it's time to peruse the 2015 Black Friday ads and make your game plan. Get lucky at Best Buy this year, and you could score a $299.99 Dell 15.6" touchscreen laptop (i3, 8GB memory, 1 TB HD), a $399.99 Microsoft 10.8" Surface 3 (Atom x7, 2GB memory, 64GB storage), $899.99 MacBook Pro 13.3" laptop (i5, 4GB memory, 500MB HD), $99 Acer 11.6" Chromebook (Celeron, 2GB memory, 16GB storage), or, for those on a tight budget, a $34.99 7" Amazon Fire tablet. Fight the crowds at Walmart, and you could snag a $199 HP 15.6" laptop (Celeron, 4GB memory, 500GB drive) or $199 iPad mini 2. And for stay-at-home shoppers, Dell's Windows 10 price-breakers include a $149.99 14" laptop (Celeron, 2GB memory, 32GB storage) and a $229 15.6" laptop (i3, 4GB memory, 500MB HD). So, in your experience, has Black Friday been like a claw machine — suckering you with big prizes, but never delivering — or have you actually walked away with a great deal?
Go take your "Black Friday" and shove it up your ass!
If you want to see what happens when users get to choose their own stories that make the front page, check out the technology section of Reddit. A third of the "articles" are just people bitching how much Comcast sucks. No thanks.
Who actually wastes their time on this shit?
I'm almost 40 and have never gone shopping on Black Friday. Why? There's never any actual good deals on anything. Hurrah! I can get a shitty broke ass low-spec flat screen for a hundred bucks from a company that nobody has ever heard of that will break in a week! But only if I'm one of the first five people through the door at 4am!
Yeah, no thanks. Black Friday is only worth it if you're extremely poor . . . (not making light of that -- it is heartbreaking to see the hurdles parents will put themselves through just to try and make sure that their kids grow up and don't have a shitty childhood full of empty holidays to look back on when they are adults . . . which sadly tens to mean buying them lots of shit).... but even then... IT STILL ISN'T WORTH IT, because good quality decent stuff is never on sale on that day . . . and if it is, only in the most minimal quantity so they can advertise it, but not have to provide it to more than the first few people in the door.
(Also, a tip such parents who feel like they have to go into debt and wake up at 2am on Friday morning just to provide a good holiday for their kids, because they don't want to let them down or feel they shortchanged their kids . . . . . . . as a kid from a super poor family where mom worked way too hard to care for three kids and desperately try to not let them down on the holidays . . . . . YOUR KIDS ARE GOING TO GROW UP TO BE GRATEFUL FOR ANYTHING THEY HAD AS LONG AS YOU WERE THERE WITH THEM. . . . Your kids are going to grow up and feel guilty for how hard you worked to provide extra things for them. You are not going to let them down, no matter what -- so don't kill yourself trying to do something).
I'll be buying something from REI this year. Specifically because they're closed on Black Friday. http://www.rei.com/black-friday
Having worked in retail while in school. I would like to say on behalf of those still stuck in retail hell, "FUCK YOU" to everyone who goes out and shops on Thanksgiving and Black Friday. You're what's wrong with this country. (Nothing against consumerism, but the people who shop on these days are just mindless!)