Because cheapest != best. If Android was better *and* cheaper, that would be one thing. But people pay money for things they want. Those that value cheapness over quality will continue to buy Android, and will also continue to not buy many apps.
The very people that are attracted by Android phones are the very type of people least likely to make app and media purchases. They are the cheapskates (self-explanatory) and the geeks who are often opposed (ironically) to paying for non-tangibles.
Apple created a lucrative market. They are charging 30% for access to that. Apps can still sell content outside of the app, but the fact is that people will vastly prefer in-app purchasing. That should be proof that it's worth the "tax".
Stores pay to be in a shopping mall. Why do they do that when they could just open their own store on their own property? Because the mall brings customers that would otherwise not stop by.
Android is not going to ever be a coherent, lucrative market. Very few people buy an Android phone specifically for Android. They buy it because it's the best phone on their carrier (Verizon), or because it's the cheapest option that provides an app phone.
That is not a good foundation upon which to build a thriving market.
Apple, on the other hand, is making each and every decision which this in mind. And because they can exert greater control over their system than Google can over theirs, they can succeed in ways that Google cannot. That also means they can fail in ways Google cannot, but looking at Apple's track record, it's not exactly rational to bet against Apple.
Every loudly proclaimed complaint about Apple is based on one of the only two strengths of Android. Specifically, "freedom from control". That definitely appeals to geeks, who love to customize the shit out of everything. But 99+% of everyone else not only doesn't care about that, but is glad to let someone else take care of those details for them. This in-app requirement is a perfect example of this. As an end-user, I'd much rather have a simple, single, built-in system that I can use to buy everything on iOS, rather than have to keep track of dozens of different accounts, subscriptions, and logins.
This thing that you are imagining is only going to hasten iOS's demise is a perfect example of the very thing that strengthens iOS. How many sales do you think Amazon and Hulu and the rest lose because of the added annoyance of signing up for yet another account? Using in-app purchasing removes that roadblock. But it goes further and adds a boost to sales as well by being so convenient that there will be people who make spur-of-the-moment sales (such as Hulu+, thinking "what the hell, it's only $10, and I can easily cancel, why not give it a try?").
That's something most geeks cannot seem to understand, or worse, they deride it as avarice (on Apple's part) and stupidity on the consumer's part.
For completeness, the other advantage of Android is hardware choice, and Apple has absolutely nothing to fear here. Any advantage in hardware choice is all but entirely theoretical outside of the geek crowd.
No, it's reality. "Issues" means "problems". Like, "I want to use it, but the patents are causing issues". Every single human on the planet has the opportunity to buy a license at a fair and consistent price. Even open source users and programmers.
You'll note I also said:
There's no "issues" here for 99+% of the people out there.
There are a very small and very limited number of people who create their own issues with this. MPEG-LA will happily license the necessary H.264 patents to anyone. But some people deliberately choose to use the one license which requires sublicensing patents used in the software, and some people will not, for ideological reasons, use patented software (and that second group of people is mostly imaginary). But both sets of these people are self-selected. *They* are the ones causing any "issues". Furthermore, they are an extremely insignificant percentage of people. They are a rounding error.
And yet the growth of open, royalty-free media continues a pace. Don't worry. The future welcomes everyone. Even the angry and confused.
H.264 is growing, so what "pace" are you talking about? Royalty-free formats are declining in use, not growing.
You want to know why? Because nobody cares. There's no practical or noticeable negative impact on the end user in using codecs like H.264, while having the benefit of being the best quality.
From a consumer perspective, it's so extremely minor as to be all but invisible.
This sums up your fundamental misunderstanding nicely. The Web's value (and the value of the Internet generally) comes in the vast reduction of the division between producer and consumer. The unacceptability of H.264 is in its widening of that gap.
And this demonstrates how utterly out of touch your understanding of the situation is. Nobody gives a shit. We just pay our 25 cents or whatever when we buy our handheld devices and our PCs, and just download VLC or QuickTime, etc., and go on about our business. H.264's licensing is essentially invisible to the end user.
How can you convince someone that something is unacceptable when it's great product, and any "unacceptable" aspect of it is all but entirely conceptual and of no practical import whatsoever?
It's interesting that the more the argument against open, royalty-free media is pursued, the more its usage is growing. It's like watching Canute attempting to order the tide to stop.
It's more like Canute ordering unicorns to stop trampling his leprechauns. H.264 is the top dog in codecs. WebM and Theora are, at best, rounding errors, if that's what you're referring to when you say "royalty-free media".
Your ignorance of the legal issues patents cause in this situations does not remove these issues.
And simply making a claim about someone being ignorant of something, without providing a shred of evidence to back it up, does not make the claim true.
If I'm ignorant of something here, why not point it out? It should be fairly simple, if it's true. If not, it's probably not going to be simpler than just claiming it's true and leaving it at that, so I can see why you chose to go that route.
I know I have caught you lying about this before, so why are you still making claims you know are false?
Hmm... This should be interesting.
H264 does have patent issues, namely that open web standards cannot be patent-encumbered.
Um, yes they can. H.264 is a web standard and it is "patent-encumbered". I thought you said you were going to point out a lie of mine, not make one yourself.
The web is built on open, royalty-free standards. H264 is incompatible with an open web.
Lies are two-for-one today? H.264 is not only compatible with an open web, but is currently a major component in the open web.
Open != free. How many times have open source and free software advocates pointed this out? Do they not listen to the words they hurl at others?
MPEG-LA, H.264, and Microsoft's involvement, has absolutely nothing to do with trying to kill Linux. Quit connecting dots which are not connected.
I've never heard a single person say, "I'd like to use Linux, but it doesn't work with H.264 video, so I can't". This is for two very important reasons.
1. Most people don't give a shit about Linux. 2. You *can* use H.264 video on Linux.
Point 1 should be self-explanatory, but point 2 could use some elaboration.
To begin with, you can simply pay a licensing fee, and you are free to use H.264, even an open source implementation. But let's say you don't want to pay a fee. You can still use x264. I can't speak for the legality of it, but it is not only widely used (with no threats or rumbling of threats from MPEG-LA), pretty much impossible to police, it's also a standard fixture on many Linux distros.
So, it's extremely difficult to see how H.264 is a tool in some imaginary war against Linux.
From a consumer perspective, it's so extremely minor as to be all but invisible.
From a creative and web services perspective, H.264 is either completely free, or of minimal cost.
So, no, my position is not disingenuous at all. What's disingenuous is pretending that something which is of little bother to the vast majority of people out there is some sort of big issue.
This is why things costs so much in America and why.coms are moving to India.
Software patents have absolutely *nothing* to do with general high prices in America, or outsourcing. Absolutely nothing.
Sorry, but I prefer not to pay to use my own computer to browse the web.
Did you buy your computer? Did you buy any software for it? Do you pay for an ISP? Do you ever pay for web services?
Let's say you conjured up your computer from thin air, use only open source software, only use free WiFi, and never pay for anything you use online, you can *still* use the web. You can even play H.264 video with open source software.
But let's say you want to not use VLC for ideological reason (and please don't pretend like you don't use it, 99% of everyone bitching about H.264 actually uses H.264). Anyway, let's say that's the case, you can still use the web! But if you can't play a lot of video, it's entirely because *you* chose not to pay a small licensing fee for the legal right to do so. You pay for your bandwidth, right? You paid for your hardware. You paid to access content (wait, you don't mind stealing content? Well, we'll leave that hypocrisy for another time). What's wrong with paying for the products and services provided by others? Especially when that product or service is of great value, and very inexpensive?
Your argument is ideological. You say you won't pay because you don't like the idea of it.
If I use Linux then I can't use the web.
That's not even remotely true.
Picking a patent from a known litigator MPAA was one of the worst decisions in the history of the internet.
Wrong target. H.264 is licensed by MPEG-LA.
It will prevent html5 from seeing the light of day.
Again, that's not even remotely true. HTML5 currently is in use on major sites.
Before you blame as socialists for this, but remember these patent trolls are the ones preventing Firefox and Chrome from using Html5 and not us Gnu zealots.
No, it's ideologues at Google and Mozilla that are preventing Firefox and Chrome from using some parts of HTML5.
Unless IE takes 90% of the market again most webmasters wont use h.264 or html5.
The vast majority of video on the web is in H.264 format. Safari, Chrome, and Firefox all support other aspects of HTML5 just fine, and it's taking off. I'm sure most of the web doesn't take advantage of HTML5, but that has nothing to do with IE's market share.
We all suffer, so yes having WebM or something not patented is a big plus for everyone.
Ignoring for now that WebM is patented, if WebM were to supplant H.264, we'd all suffer for having to use an inferior codec. Also, that would require a lot of transcoding, including video from consumer cameras.
I listed both software and physical patents. Also, whenever software patents are brought up, hypothetical scenarios are always brought up, but actual, real scenarios are rarely considered. It's quite simple to make up a scenario where your "razor stops working" if you don't pay a fee, or whatever. But let's look at the actual patents under discussion. H.264 has an open, simple, fair, and inexpensive licensing model. Why act like this is something it's not?
People pay for things other people create. That includes physical items (like cars) and intangible items like music and software. If the license is onerous, people will be more disinclined to buy it. H.264's licensing is not onerous to well over 99% of the people out there. It's a small minority of idealogical purists who demand everything be freely implementable. Most people don't mind paying for their software, as long as it provides sufficient value (and H.264 very much does), is reasonably cheap (and H.264 is *very* cheap), and buying it is not a hassle (H.264 licensing requires no effort on the end-user whatsoever).
So, while you can say, "well, they could make the rules such that X" or whatever, but they didn't. If you want to discuss software patents in general, what use is it if you don't also discuss them as they actually exist?
He never stated only software patents, but I did list software along with hardware.
And he isn't trying to get rid of software patents. That's a legislative process. He's just telling people not to use existing legal frameworks, which is foolish.
His hypocrisy is bitching about patents (his words, "FUCK... OFF" and "I like freedom from patent-encumbered garbage.") so selectively. That's hypocrisy.
I never said it was a dichotomy. That's when you say things can only be one way or the other. I'm not. I'm saying that *he's* engaging in hypocrisy. I also stated that it doesn't bother me, I'm just pointing it out to demonstrate the folly of his extreme stance. *He* can't even live up to it, yet he demands others to cater to his irrational wishes.
And, I don't see what progress before the first software patents has to do with whether or not he's a hypocrite.
Since the current discussion is between WebM, which was a private, one party solution, and H.264, which was a public collaboration, how apt do you think yours and the AC's comments are on this topic?
H.264 has no "patent issues". You want to use it, under certain circumstance, you pay to use it, just like countless other things you pay for. There's no "issues" here for 99+% of the people out there.
The effects of the H.264 patents are minimal, and easily addressed. It's disingenuous to act like this is some major problem.
What do you use that isn't "patent-encumbered"? Your computer is chock full of patents, as is everything else computer-related (except maybe an Arduino). Do you use Linux? Do you use Flash on Linux? Do you have x264 or VLC installed?
What kind of car do you drive? Do you have a TV? Microwave? Electric shaver? Normal disposable razor? What kind of pens and pencils do you use? Do you ever listen to the radio? MP3 player?
Sure, you are a hypocrite, but I really don't have too much of a problem with that. Nor do I have a problem with you trying to lead an ascetically "pure" life. I *do*, however, have a huge problem with you trying to fuck over everyone else, demanding they live their lives by your ideology. If you don't want to take part in modern society, by all means, whatever floats your boat.
Your open standard definition is as defined by Microsoft, not most standard bodies.
Like the ISO?
You guys are doing the thing you complain about everyone else doing. Namely, confusing "open" and "free". WebM is more free than H.264 (although H.264 is free in many cases). H.264 is more open than WebM.
Furthermore, no one gives a shit whether the standard is open for input.
About the same amount that give a shit that their hardware and software came with a small licensing fee for H.264. Far more people care about the video quality and the impact on their devices that their video has, and H.264 trounces WebM here.
For one thing, 'open' standards are often worse off because of it.
Wait, did you just say that open standards are worse off because they involve open collaboration?
Secondly, you aren't going to be able to afford the $100,000 to whisper your desires to the corporate oversight committee anyway.
The proof is in the pudding. Compare WebM with H.264, or if you want a more open source comparison, Theora.
You're making all these arguments for why the open standards process is bad, but when it all boils down, the best video codec out there was borne out of that very process.
What? The *TV* is all about consuming content, not creating it. The things you plug into a TV just help you consume more/different/better content. Your DVR, cable box, PS3/Xbox360/Wii, XBMC, AppleTV, etc., are all consumption devices, and *NONE* of them are creation devices. Not even your video or still camera are content creation devices while they're plugged into your TV.
If you want to create content, Apple (and others) have plenty of powerful machines for doing just that. Adding gaming to the AppleTV will not make the Mac vanish, nor will your PC suddenly find itself incapable of creating content.
I have both an AppleTV (current iOS model) and PS3 connected via WiFi to an AirPort Extreme with dual-band (and even two networks (the guest network option) for a while) with absolutely no problem. I'd look into the settings on your base station, or perhaps the hardware itself has a problem. There's a log in the AirPort Utility you can use to troubleshoot.
Lastly, sometimes just changing the settings and saving them, then changing them right back, fixes odd WiFi router problems.
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You do know what an analogy is, right?
Because cheapest != best. If Android was better *and* cheaper, that would be one thing. But people pay money for things they want. Those that value cheapness over quality will continue to buy Android, and will also continue to not buy many apps.
The very people that are attracted by Android phones are the very type of people least likely to make app and media purchases. They are the cheapskates (self-explanatory) and the geeks who are often opposed (ironically) to paying for non-tangibles.
Apple created a lucrative market. They are charging 30% for access to that. Apps can still sell content outside of the app, but the fact is that people will vastly prefer in-app purchasing. That should be proof that it's worth the "tax".
Stores pay to be in a shopping mall. Why do they do that when they could just open their own store on their own property? Because the mall brings customers that would otherwise not stop by.
"Crumbling market share"?
Android is not going to ever be a coherent, lucrative market. Very few people buy an Android phone specifically for Android. They buy it because it's the best phone on their carrier (Verizon), or because it's the cheapest option that provides an app phone.
That is not a good foundation upon which to build a thriving market.
Apple, on the other hand, is making each and every decision which this in mind. And because they can exert greater control over their system than Google can over theirs, they can succeed in ways that Google cannot. That also means they can fail in ways Google cannot, but looking at Apple's track record, it's not exactly rational to bet against Apple.
Every loudly proclaimed complaint about Apple is based on one of the only two strengths of Android. Specifically, "freedom from control". That definitely appeals to geeks, who love to customize the shit out of everything. But 99+% of everyone else not only doesn't care about that, but is glad to let someone else take care of those details for them. This in-app requirement is a perfect example of this. As an end-user, I'd much rather have a simple, single, built-in system that I can use to buy everything on iOS, rather than have to keep track of dozens of different accounts, subscriptions, and logins.
This thing that you are imagining is only going to hasten iOS's demise is a perfect example of the very thing that strengthens iOS. How many sales do you think Amazon and Hulu and the rest lose because of the added annoyance of signing up for yet another account? Using in-app purchasing removes that roadblock. But it goes further and adds a boost to sales as well by being so convenient that there will be people who make spur-of-the-moment sales (such as Hulu+, thinking "what the hell, it's only $10, and I can easily cancel, why not give it a try?").
That's something most geeks cannot seem to understand, or worse, they deride it as avarice (on Apple's part) and stupidity on the consumer's part.
For completeness, the other advantage of Android is hardware choice, and Apple has absolutely nothing to fear here. Any advantage in hardware choice is all but entirely theoretical outside of the geek crowd.
It's not either-or. You know what's better than 100% from Android? 100% from Android *and* 70% from iOS.
In fact, even it it was either-or, 70% from iOS is still more lucrative than 100% from Android.
But you said
H.264 has no "patent issues"...
That is 100% ignorance.
No, it's reality. "Issues" means "problems". Like, "I want to use it, but the patents are causing issues". Every single human on the planet has the opportunity to buy a license at a fair and consistent price. Even open source users and programmers.
You'll note I also said:
There's no "issues" here for 99+% of the people out there.
There are a very small and very limited number of people who create their own issues with this. MPEG-LA will happily license the necessary H.264 patents to anyone. But some people deliberately choose to use the one license which requires sublicensing patents used in the software, and some people will not, for ideological reasons, use patented software (and that second group of people is mostly imaginary). But both sets of these people are self-selected. *They* are the ones causing any "issues". Furthermore, they are an extremely insignificant percentage of people. They are a rounding error.
Nobody gives a shit.
And yet the growth of open, royalty-free media continues a pace. Don't worry. The future welcomes everyone. Even the angry and confused.
H.264 is growing, so what "pace" are you talking about? Royalty-free formats are declining in use, not growing.
You want to know why? Because nobody cares. There's no practical or noticeable negative impact on the end user in using codecs like H.264, while having the benefit of being the best quality.
From a consumer perspective, it's so extremely minor as to be all but invisible.
This sums up your fundamental misunderstanding nicely. The Web's value (and the value of the Internet generally) comes in the vast reduction of the division between producer and consumer. The unacceptability of H.264 is in its widening of that gap.
And this demonstrates how utterly out of touch your understanding of the situation is. Nobody gives a shit. We just pay our 25 cents or whatever when we buy our handheld devices and our PCs, and just download VLC or QuickTime, etc., and go on about our business. H.264's licensing is essentially invisible to the end user.
How can you convince someone that something is unacceptable when it's great product, and any "unacceptable" aspect of it is all but entirely conceptual and of no practical import whatsoever?
It's interesting that the more the argument against open, royalty-free media is pursued, the more its usage is growing. It's like watching Canute attempting to order the tide to stop.
It's more like Canute ordering unicorns to stop trampling his leprechauns. H.264 is the top dog in codecs. WebM and Theora are, at best, rounding errors, if that's what you're referring to when you say "royalty-free media".
Your ignorance of the legal issues patents cause in this situations does not remove these issues.
And simply making a claim about someone being ignorant of something, without providing a shred of evidence to back it up, does not make the claim true.
If I'm ignorant of something here, why not point it out? It should be fairly simple, if it's true. If not, it's probably not going to be simpler than just claiming it's true and leaving it at that, so I can see why you chose to go that route.
WebM has no "patent issues". You want to use it, you don't have to pay for it. There's no "issues" here for 100% of the people out there.
The effects of the WebM patents are 0. It's disingenuous to act like this is some major problem.
See what I did there?
Yeah, you said something completely different than what I said, and pretended like it disproves what I said.
But yes, I concede that a statement that I didn't make can be false.
I know I have caught you lying about this before, so why are you still making claims you know are false?
Hmm... This should be interesting.
H264 does have patent issues, namely that open web standards cannot be patent-encumbered.
Um, yes they can. H.264 is a web standard and it is "patent-encumbered". I thought you said you were going to point out a lie of mine, not make one yourself.
The web is built on open, royalty-free standards. H264 is incompatible with an open web.
Lies are two-for-one today? H.264 is not only compatible with an open web, but is currently a major component in the open web.
Open != free. How many times have open source and free software advocates pointed this out? Do they not listen to the words they hurl at others?
MPEG-LA, H.264, and Microsoft's involvement, has absolutely nothing to do with trying to kill Linux. Quit connecting dots which are not connected.
I've never heard a single person say, "I'd like to use Linux, but it doesn't work with H.264 video, so I can't". This is for two very important reasons.
1. Most people don't give a shit about Linux.
2. You *can* use H.264 video on Linux.
Point 1 should be self-explanatory, but point 2 could use some elaboration.
To begin with, you can simply pay a licensing fee, and you are free to use H.264, even an open source implementation. But let's say you don't want to pay a fee. You can still use x264. I can't speak for the legality of it, but it is not only widely used (with no threats or rumbling of threats from MPEG-LA), pretty much impossible to police, it's also a standard fixture on many Linux distros.
So, it's extremely difficult to see how H.264 is a tool in some imaginary war against Linux.
From a consumer perspective, it's so extremely minor as to be all but invisible.
From a creative and web services perspective, H.264 is either completely free, or of minimal cost.
So, no, my position is not disingenuous at all. What's disingenuous is pretending that something which is of little bother to the vast majority of people out there is some sort of big issue.
This is why things costs so much in America and why .coms are moving to India.
Software patents have absolutely *nothing* to do with general high prices in America, or outsourcing. Absolutely nothing.
Sorry, but I prefer not to pay to use my own computer to browse the web.
Did you buy your computer? Did you buy any software for it? Do you pay for an ISP? Do you ever pay for web services?
Let's say you conjured up your computer from thin air, use only open source software, only use free WiFi, and never pay for anything you use online, you can *still* use the web. You can even play H.264 video with open source software.
But let's say you want to not use VLC for ideological reason (and please don't pretend like you don't use it, 99% of everyone bitching about H.264 actually uses H.264). Anyway, let's say that's the case, you can still use the web! But if you can't play a lot of video, it's entirely because *you* chose not to pay a small licensing fee for the legal right to do so. You pay for your bandwidth, right? You paid for your hardware. You paid to access content (wait, you don't mind stealing content? Well, we'll leave that hypocrisy for another time). What's wrong with paying for the products and services provided by others? Especially when that product or service is of great value, and very inexpensive?
Your argument is ideological. You say you won't pay because you don't like the idea of it.
If I use Linux then I can't use the web.
That's not even remotely true.
Picking a patent from a known litigator MPAA was one of the worst decisions in the history of the internet.
Wrong target. H.264 is licensed by MPEG-LA.
It will prevent html5 from seeing the light of day.
Again, that's not even remotely true. HTML5 currently is in use on major sites.
Before you blame as socialists for this, but remember these patent trolls are the ones preventing Firefox and Chrome from using Html5 and not us Gnu zealots.
No, it's ideologues at Google and Mozilla that are preventing Firefox and Chrome from using some parts of HTML5.
Unless IE takes 90% of the market again most webmasters wont use h.264 or html5.
The vast majority of video on the web is in H.264 format. Safari, Chrome, and Firefox all support other aspects of HTML5 just fine, and it's taking off. I'm sure most of the web doesn't take advantage of HTML5, but that has nothing to do with IE's market share.
We all suffer, so yes having WebM or something not patented is a big plus for everyone.
Ignoring for now that WebM is patented, if WebM were to supplant H.264, we'd all suffer for having to use an inferior codec. Also, that would require a lot of transcoding, including video from consumer cameras.
I listed both software and physical patents. Also, whenever software patents are brought up, hypothetical scenarios are always brought up, but actual, real scenarios are rarely considered. It's quite simple to make up a scenario where your "razor stops working" if you don't pay a fee, or whatever. But let's look at the actual patents under discussion. H.264 has an open, simple, fair, and inexpensive licensing model. Why act like this is something it's not?
People pay for things other people create. That includes physical items (like cars) and intangible items like music and software. If the license is onerous, people will be more disinclined to buy it. H.264's licensing is not onerous to well over 99% of the people out there. It's a small minority of idealogical purists who demand everything be freely implementable. Most people don't mind paying for their software, as long as it provides sufficient value (and H.264 very much does), is reasonably cheap (and H.264 is *very* cheap), and buying it is not a hassle (H.264 licensing requires no effort on the end-user whatsoever).
So, while you can say, "well, they could make the rules such that X" or whatever, but they didn't. If you want to discuss software patents in general, what use is it if you don't also discuss them as they actually exist?
He never stated only software patents, but I did list software along with hardware.
And he isn't trying to get rid of software patents. That's a legislative process. He's just telling people not to use existing legal frameworks, which is foolish.
In which language does "ass hole" mean rational?
His hypocrisy is bitching about patents (his words, "FUCK... OFF" and "I like freedom from patent-encumbered garbage.") so selectively. That's hypocrisy.
I never said it was a dichotomy. That's when you say things can only be one way or the other. I'm not. I'm saying that *he's* engaging in hypocrisy. I also stated that it doesn't bother me, I'm just pointing it out to demonstrate the folly of his extreme stance. *He* can't even live up to it, yet he demands others to cater to his irrational wishes.
And, I don't see what progress before the first software patents has to do with whether or not he's a hypocrite.
Um, where did I ever say HTML was "patent-encumbered"? Or CSS?
Also, please elaborate on what you think are "extremely dishonest lies".
I won't hold my breath, however, because it's clear you simply mean "opinions I disagree with".
Since the current discussion is between WebM, which was a private, one party solution, and H.264, which was a public collaboration, how apt do you think yours and the AC's comments are on this topic?
H.264 has no "patent issues". You want to use it, under certain circumstance, you pay to use it, just like countless other things you pay for. There's no "issues" here for 99+% of the people out there.
The effects of the H.264 patents are minimal, and easily addressed. It's disingenuous to act like this is some major problem.
What do you use that isn't "patent-encumbered"? Your computer is chock full of patents, as is everything else computer-related (except maybe an Arduino). Do you use Linux? Do you use Flash on Linux? Do you have x264 or VLC installed?
What kind of car do you drive? Do you have a TV? Microwave? Electric shaver? Normal disposable razor? What kind of pens and pencils do you use? Do you ever listen to the radio? MP3 player?
Sure, you are a hypocrite, but I really don't have too much of a problem with that. Nor do I have a problem with you trying to lead an ascetically "pure" life. I *do*, however, have a huge problem with you trying to fuck over everyone else, demanding they live their lives by your ideology. If you don't want to take part in modern society, by all means, whatever floats your boat.
Your open standard definition is as defined by Microsoft, not most standard bodies.
Like the ISO?
You guys are doing the thing you complain about everyone else doing. Namely, confusing "open" and "free". WebM is more free than H.264 (although H.264 is free in many cases). H.264 is more open than WebM.
Furthermore, no one gives a shit whether the standard is open for input.
About the same amount that give a shit that their hardware and software came with a small licensing fee for H.264. Far more people care about the video quality and the impact on their devices that their video has, and H.264 trounces WebM here.
For one thing, 'open' standards are often worse off because of it.
Wait, did you just say that open standards are worse off because they involve open collaboration?
Secondly, you aren't going to be able to afford the $100,000 to whisper your desires to the corporate oversight committee anyway.
The proof is in the pudding. Compare WebM with H.264, or if you want a more open source comparison, Theora.
You're making all these arguments for why the open standards process is bad, but when it all boils down, the best video codec out there was borne out of that very process.
If anything it may be the smartest thing they've done.
How often is partnering with Microsoft the smartest thing anyone's done?
What? The *TV* is all about consuming content, not creating it. The things you plug into a TV just help you consume more/different/better content. Your DVR, cable box, PS3/Xbox360/Wii, XBMC, AppleTV, etc., are all consumption devices, and *NONE* of them are creation devices. Not even your video or still camera are content creation devices while they're plugged into your TV.
If you want to create content, Apple (and others) have plenty of powerful machines for doing just that. Adding gaming to the AppleTV will not make the Mac vanish, nor will your PC suddenly find itself incapable of creating content.
I have both an AppleTV (current iOS model) and PS3 connected via WiFi to an AirPort Extreme with dual-band (and even two networks (the guest network option) for a while) with absolutely no problem. I'd look into the settings on your base station, or perhaps the hardware itself has a problem. There's a log in the AirPort Utility you can use to troubleshoot.
Lastly, sometimes just changing the settings and saving them, then changing them right back, fixes odd WiFi router problems.