I think the point is that the encryption algorithms themselves are incapable of producing anything that does not look like a 'real' result. For instance, if you have a credit card number you could encypt is as just a series of characters. But that makes it easy to determine which keys are wrong, because decrypting with them would return something other than a string of 16 digits. But what if you treated those 16 digits as a number and encrypted it as such? Then, no matter what key was tried, you would also get back a valid number which could be represented as 16 digits, so you have no way of knowing which is the real answer.
No, it is not a 'stupid customer' problem. The STANDARD says that an 'n' device must also do a/b/g. That is what Cisco is complaining about. They want a new standard that does not have the requiement of supporting the old standards.
Holy crap! You can't really be that stupid, can you? On second thought, maybe you can.
This article is about giving a flat rate to a STUDIO, not a PERSON. When the OP said 'movie producer' he was obviously referring to the studio, that, you know, PRODUCES MOVIES, not the person whose job title is 'producer'.
You can NOT compare a company that invests real dollars in something hoping to make it up in sales with an employee that collects a paycheck no matter what. If the product fails, the company can go bankrupt and cease to exist. The employee, on the other hand, has lost nothing except his job. Those are not remotely the same.
The only companies that operate on the 'flat fee' model are telcos, cable companies, and ISPs. For some reason, none of those companies are really know as big risk takers, willing to 'bet the company' on an exciting new product. On the other hand, there are LOADS of companies who operate on the 'if you want what we made, buy it' model, and those companies ARE known for innovation. Strange, isn't it?
You must only provide code to someone that gets your software -- you could sell the software and only give the code to those that buy it, for example, and meet the requirements.
A completely meaningless distinction. Why is it meaningless? Because you can not, per the GPL, put any restrictions on what the person who receives the software can do with it, including giving it to the entire world.
I'll give a real-life example of why this matters. I work for a manufacturer. All of our manufacturing is in-house. We have custom software that we wrote, at considerable expense, to make our manufacturing operations more efficient. This gives us a competitive advantage.
Now, we want to expand into a market that has significant protectionism laws. Namely, if our product is not built in that market a 100% levy will be assessed on the product. It will be far too expensive to make our own factory, so we will contract with someone else to do the manufacturing. This manufacturer also builds stuff for our competitor. In order to provide the quality and cost that we require we want the contractor to use our processes and tooling. No problem, done all the time. The contractor signs an NDA with severe penalties for leaking any of our stuff. SOP.
EXCEPT, back when our custom software was written, some GPL code was included. This was legal and nothing wrong with it. Now, however, we are going to fall into the 'distributor' category by letting the contractor use our software. Now the GPL says we can NOT prevent the contractor from doing whatever he wants with our software, including giving it our competitors or using it in his other operations.
So what did we do? Rewrote the software (more expense) to remove all the GPL parts, and instated a new company rule: no internal use stuff is to be based on GPL code, ever.
Strange. I have lived in America my entire life, and have not heard of anyone with this arrangement.
Oh, you think you are being clever, and you mean employees, right?
So tell me, how much cost and financial risk (to you) is associated with your job. Don't tell me, I already know ($0). Do you think producing a movie can be done for no cost and zero financial risk?
Now tell me this: what companies are producing the most innovative and/or highest quality stuff? The ones where the employees get a flat rate, with no incentives for the company doing well, or the ones whose employees actually have incentive?
But it IS as simple as "anything other than his way is bad". The rise of LLVM in no ways impacts Stallmans work. He can release his work however he wants, and nobody can do anything about it. His complaint (here) is entirely about what OTHER people are doing. It is strictly 'any way but my way it bad'.
You offer nothing to substantiate your claims except good old cycnism, which is worth exactly nothing.
Lets take an example so you can point out exactly where the 'chicanery' is.
Say you have a product, and there is only one version of it (no features). Said product has a BOM (bill of materials) cost of $500, and an MVA (manufacturing value add, what it costs to manufacture) of 10%. The 'cost' of that product is $550. OK so far?
Now you want to add an optional feature to this product. Said feature has a BOM cost of $50, so the 'cost; of this feature is $55. The feature also a sunk development cost of $1 per unit, and a warranty cost of $1 per unit. Total cost of $57. So the product + feature cost would be $607, and the product without the feature would still be $550.
However, as I explained above, there are very real costs associated with having multiple versions of a thing. In addition to the more complex logistics, need for more stocking locations, etc there is a very expensive rework cost involved when the 'mix' that was forecast is wrong. It is not at all unusual for these costs to add 15% or more to the product cost. So now the cost of the product with the feature is $695.75 and the cost without the feature is $632.50. This is with the 'traditional' method of only installing parts that are required.
Now suppose we use the 'always add the parts and enable if required' method. What happens to the cost? Well, you have increased the base BOM cost by $55 (development and warranty do not apply to the base), but have eliminated that 'complexity' 15% bump. The base product now cossts $605, a decrease of $27.50 from the price of the traditional method. And the price of the product with the feature is now $607, a decrease of $88.75 from the traditional method. Where exactly is the 'chicanery'? The manufacturer can, if he wants, drop the 'base' price and add more to the feature price. If he has a 50/50 split of feature/no feature he can remove the BOM cost of the feature from the base price altogether and charge double the BOM cost for the 'feature' price and the people paying for the feature will still only be paying $11.25 more than they would have under the 'traditional' method.
Adding complexity (built-in featiures) adds significant cost. It is the reason why car manufacturers only offer options in 'groups'. Making only a few groups available greaty reduces the complexity (and hence cost) compared to offering each option individually. Generally, the only things you can add individually are things that are easily changed and do not affect the build mix (floor mats, wheel packages, etc). This has nothing to do with 'chicanery' and everything to do with keeping costs down.
I have 30+ years manufacturing engineering experience. These numbers are not at all out of line.
If someone rents the seat warmer for one month and nothing happens, then the heater has been 'installed' and paid for. Part of the money that was paid for goes toward the warranty cost. If it 'comes on when it shouldn't' then some control module somewhere (that probably does way more than the seat heater) is defective and needs to be replaced. Unless you think that a heating element can magically get hot with no electricity applied to it.
Design costs are not a per-unit expense. The design costs for each unit are exactly $0. However, there is a one-time design expense, and the question is: who pays it? A reasonable person would say the people who want the thing that was designed, and nobody else. Your 'they all have the same design cost' implies that the cost should be spread among all customers, even those who don't want it, and that is just stupid.
Your two cars scenario is really dumb. Yes, if those two cars are the ONLY two options to buy then you are correct. Of course, here in the real world that is not the case. In the real world there are hundreds of options to choose from, and they have DIFFERENT prices. At least SOME people (the ones with brains) are going to choose the version that only costs $15000 and does not have all the options. And once again, you fail to mention how this $20K car with all the options is able to be offered at that price. More magic hand-waving away of costs I guess.
For a strictly financial transaction, such as purchasing something, 'not willing to pay for' equates to a value (to you) of $0.
Any 'manufacturing value' that is 'destroyed' by blowing a core pales in comparison to the loss in revenue by giving cores away for free. This is not (or should not be) a difficult concept to grasp.
Your car analogy is still awful, and bears no resemblance to the chip situation. As I said above, blowing a core has very little cost to the manufacturer, but a potentially huge payoff in revenue. Scratching a car after it has been made provides zero revenue benefit (is someone going to buy 2 cars because the first one was scratched) but at a large sunk cost (the painting that has already been done), and hence just a net loss, to a car manufacturer. The two situations are polar opposites.
Seriously? If I only make 4-core chips (good economic sense), but you are only willing to pay for 1 of them, destroying the other three has not in any way destroyed economic value. They have no value because you are not going to pay for them (unless you somehow think the remaining good cores could be sold to someone else). On the other hand, not destroying them is giving away economic value for free, which in fact IS destroying the economic value to me.
Your car example is horribly flawed. The cost of the car is already set. The dealer owes the manufacturer for that car. Scratching the paint in no way reduces the cost of the car, so there is no reason it should reduce the price of the car. On the other hand, if the dealer receives the car with a scratch in it he can tell the manufacturer about it and get the cost reduced. In that case, he could sell the car to you for less if you are willing to take the scratch.
You still don't get it. The only thing you had right in your post was that the cars are physically identical. The high-end cars cost no more to MANUFACTURE than the low end cars, but they certainly cost more to MAKE. Making a car involves more than just manufacturing. It also involves design, testing, marketing, and support (warranty). And when you consider THOSE costs, clearly the high-end DOES cost more than the low end (for instance, a car without a seat heater 'installed' will never have a valid warranty claim for non-functioning seat heater).
As for 'value for price' - if I don't want a seat heater, the value of one is $0. If I must pay for a heater I didn't want (because you don't offer an option), then my 'value for price' has dropped. I don't really care if you put extra parts in there or not, I am not paying for them. The parts being there add NO value for me. On the other hand, if I do want a seat heater, then there is value in one for me. I will pay for that value. Again, I don't really care how you provide what I want, as long as I get my value out of it.
I'll never understand why people such as yourself determine 'value' based on not how much something is worth to you, but by how much it costs to manufacture. Makes no sense at all. I wonder if you also insist that your employer pay you based not on how much your work is worth to him, but by how much it 'costs' you to perform that work (which is essentially $0).
Wrong. The only way your example and statement makes sense is if you believe that the bulk of the price you pay for a chip is the actual manufacturing cost. And if you beleive that, you are sadly mistaken. The bulk of the cost is the sunk and fixed costs involved in development, tooling, fabs, etc. Those costs are amortized over each CORE sold, not each CHIP. Intel can NOT be profitable selling chips at only the low end price, they can be profitable selling chips at the AVERAGE price they get.
So why not just sell chips at the average price? Because not everyone NEEDS or is willing to pay for a high-end chip. Could they make different versions of the chip with different numbers of core in them? Sure, but that would drive costs UP not down.
If you only want/need one core, why should you have to pay for 2.5 (average number) cores? And if you need four cores, why shouldn't you pay for them?
The only thing 'unhealthy' here is your understanding of manufacturing, business, and economics. Don't beleive everything you thought you learned in high school economics. They real world is much more complicated.
Haha! Nice one. I find it interesting that you provide no mechanism by which this 'competitor' will be able to crush you on price.
Assume two competitors. Both have similar development, setup, and warranty costs. Both have the same product set. Both have similar profit margins. Now, explain how the one with the least efficient manufacturing process is going 'crush the other one on cost'. Yes, the first competitor may have spent money on creating the 'disable' feature, but that is a one-time cost and can be amortized over multiple products. On the other hand, the one with the inefficient manufacturing is paying for that inefficiecy on every single unit built, forever. I fail to see how that is going to allow him to 'crush anyone on cost'.
Which leaves one option - something other than the ability to enable/disable features is going on. So what is it? Is the 'cheap' competitor only selling one product (the one with the feature)? If so, that leaves the door wide open for some third competitor to come in and offer a model without the feature, 'crushing him on price'. Now you are only able to sell to people who want the feature. No problem, except that now all of the sunk and fixed costs for everything except this feature, which were previously spread across both models with and without the feature, must be borne by your single offering. Oops, your price per unit just shot WAY up. And the same thing is happening to the competitor who only offered the cheap model, which is no longer so cheap.
I have a feeling that your 'healthy' market contains some sort of magic. Please explain what it is.
Complete bullshit. The only time what you said would be true (and it is NEVER the case) is when the BOM cost is the ONLY cost associated with something.
Let's say I spend $10M designing, developing, and testing some new feature. I send the drawings out to get bids on the parts, and I get quotes that it will cost $10 to manufacture each part - that is my BOM cost. Now I spend more money updating my manufacturing processes, tooling, etc to install the part.
But now I have a problem. The complexities involved in manufacturing two versions of my product (with and without the new feature) increases the cost of BOTH versions of the product. Logistics, storage, spare parts, etc all have a cost associated with them, and the possibility of guessing wrong on the 'mix' of products (too many of one type get unsold, not enough of the other type leaves money on the table) is a real risk also. So, it is entirely possible that is is actually cheaper to include my $10 part in both versions and enable it only if the customer wants.
So why have the split offering version at all? Because I still have the $10M development cost plus the other fixed costs to recoup. Also, since no manufacturing process is perfect, I have warranty costs associated with the parts. If I spread those costs over all products then I have no 'cheap' option to sell to my customers. I see absolutely nothing wrong with charging only the people who want to use a feature for that feature.
Your post (and many like it) shows that you know nothing of manufacturing (or business in general). Unfortunately this is all too prevalent on slashdot.
There is cost and risk associated with every choice you give your customer that involves manufacturing. Take the example of seat heaters. Suppose you offer cloth seats in gray or red, and leather seats in black or tan. Any of these can come with a seat heater or not. You now have 8 different seat configurations to deal with. Obviously this has a cost associated with it. You need more complicated logistics, your manufacturing processes are more complex (add heater/don't add heater), you need more space to store parts because you have more part numbers, etc. There is also risk - you must hope that you guess right on the 'mix' of seats you make. If you make too many red cloth seats with heaters, you have the risk of not selling them, or having to sell them at reduced price. If you don't make enough, you leave money on the table. Reducing the amount of complexity can result in a SIGNIFICANT reduction in cost.
On the other hand, there is obviously a cost associated with installing seat heaters in every car. This is the BOM cost of the heater itself, and is, unfortunately, the only cost that is considered by people such as yourself. However, the BOM cost of a seat heater is probaby pretty low. The manufacturing efficiencies gained by reducing the complexity of the offering could actually result in ALL seats being cheaper by putting heaters in them all.
So, why don't they just put the heaters in every car then, for free? Because there are additional costs, unrelated to the BOM cost, that you have ignored. Before the first heater can be installed, it and it's control system needs to be designed and tested. Manufacturing processes need to be created. Assemblers need to be trained. Tooling needs to be purchased or created. All of that requires money, and can be a significant cost. Before a heater can be sold people need to know the option is available - more money. And after the sale, there are warranty costs.
So, who should pay those non-BOM related costs? Everyone who buys a car, or only the people who want/have a use for seat heaters? The answer seems obvious.
Now, who gets 'hurt' by doing this? Nobody. The person who doesn't want a heater does not pay any more for their car (maybe they even pay less because of the reduction in complexity). The person who wants a heater pays for it and gets one. And the manufacturer has simpler processes and a better chance at giving the customer exactly what they want.
The only people who have a problem with this sort of thing are the ones who think BOM cost == value, and completely ignore all other costs and benefits.
The only thing 'utterly stupid' is you. Nowhere does it say they are going to produce a million animals. It says, quite clearly, that they are going to sequence the genomes of a million animals (and a million plants, and a million people).
How is cloning in any way more efficient than traditional breeding? This says they can do 2 implantations a day. I bet a regular pig farm can do way more than that.
Why do idiots such as yourself keep repeating this nonsense? Who, exactly, is 'beholden' to Monsanto? Farmers choose to plant GMO because, even though they have to pay mean old Monsanto, it is more profitable for them than planting non-GMO.
It was never free, or even free-ish. It was just that is used to be paid for by someone else (the sponsors). In turn, you, the viewer, 'paid' the sponsor by watching his ads and maybe buying his product. If you are not willing to 'pay' the sponsor, then he is not willing to pay for you to be able to watch TV for free. Quite simple. Quit acting like something has been taken away from you, or that the TV networks are somehow greedy by still needing to be paid for what they produce.
Maybe you should call and explain to them exactly how 'getting eyes on the product' leads to revenue, and more importantly, more revenue than they make by billing for views.
You manage to make it sound like Google (queue heavenly sounds) invented the ad supported business. ABC was an ad-supported business for decades before Google ever existed. What you fail to realize is that people don't want ads interrupting their TV viewing. The only real choices are: even more intrusive ads (overlays, etc), or get paid directly for the content, or some mix of both. If you have a better solution, lets hear it.
Fountains are a good bet. For instance, a certain large, well-known company that owns theme parks and resorts has recently added RFID chips to the soda cups they sell. When you go to a self-service fountain, the fountain checks if the cup is allowed to be filled. They check to see if the cup is from this location, if it is within an allowed 'free refill' time, and if it is being used too often (you must wait a few minutes before it can be refilled). No more buying a single cup and walking around all day getting 'free refills'. No more buying a single cup then giving all 8 kids a soda by pouring from the purchased cup into your own cup over and over.
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I think the point is that the encryption algorithms themselves are incapable of producing anything that does not look like a 'real' result. For instance, if you have a credit card number you could encypt is as just a series of characters. But that makes it easy to determine which keys are wrong, because decrypting with them would return something other than a string of 16 digits. But what if you treated those 16 digits as a number and encrypted it as such? Then, no matter what key was tried, you would also get back a valid number which could be represented as 16 digits, so you have no way of knowing which is the real answer.
No, it is not a 'stupid customer' problem. The STANDARD says that an 'n' device must also do a/b/g. That is what Cisco is complaining about. They want a new standard that does not have the requiement of supporting the old standards.
Certainly not the FCC. These are unlicensed bands, they don't care what you do with them (which is the whole point of unlicensed bands).
Holy crap! You can't really be that stupid, can you? On second thought, maybe you can.
This article is about giving a flat rate to a STUDIO, not a PERSON. When the OP said 'movie producer' he was obviously referring to the studio, that, you know, PRODUCES MOVIES, not the person whose job title is 'producer'.
You can NOT compare a company that invests real dollars in something hoping to make it up in sales with an employee that collects a paycheck no matter what. If the product fails, the company can go bankrupt and cease to exist. The employee, on the other hand, has lost nothing except his job. Those are not remotely the same.
The only companies that operate on the 'flat fee' model are telcos, cable companies, and ISPs. For some reason, none of those companies are really know as big risk takers, willing to 'bet the company' on an exciting new product. On the other hand, there are LOADS of companies who operate on the 'if you want what we made, buy it' model, and those companies ARE known for innovation. Strange, isn't it?
You must only provide code to someone that gets your software -- you could sell the software and only give the code to those that buy it, for example, and meet the requirements.
A completely meaningless distinction. Why is it meaningless? Because you can not, per the GPL, put any restrictions on what the person who receives the software can do with it, including giving it to the entire world.
I'll give a real-life example of why this matters. I work for a manufacturer. All of our manufacturing is in-house. We have custom software that we wrote, at considerable expense, to make our manufacturing operations more efficient. This gives us a competitive advantage.
Now, we want to expand into a market that has significant protectionism laws. Namely, if our product is not built in that market a 100% levy will be assessed on the product. It will be far too expensive to make our own factory, so we will contract with someone else to do the manufacturing. This manufacturer also builds stuff for our competitor. In order to provide the quality and cost that we require we want the contractor to use our processes and tooling. No problem, done all the time. The contractor signs an NDA with severe penalties for leaking any of our stuff. SOP.
EXCEPT, back when our custom software was written, some GPL code was included. This was legal and nothing wrong with it. Now, however, we are going to fall into the 'distributor' category by letting the contractor use our software. Now the GPL says we can NOT prevent the contractor from doing whatever he wants with our software, including giving it our competitors or using it in his other operations.
So what did we do? Rewrote the software (more expense) to remove all the GPL parts, and instated a new company rule: no internal use stuff is to be based on GPL code, ever.
Strange. I have lived in America my entire life, and have not heard of anyone with this arrangement.
Oh, you think you are being clever, and you mean employees, right?
So tell me, how much cost and financial risk (to you) is associated with your job. Don't tell me, I already know ($0). Do you think producing a movie can be done for no cost and zero financial risk?
Now tell me this: what companies are producing the most innovative and/or highest quality stuff? The ones where the employees get a flat rate, with no incentives for the company doing well, or the ones whose employees actually have incentive?
But it IS as simple as "anything other than his way is bad". The rise of LLVM in no ways impacts Stallmans work. He can release his work however he wants, and nobody can do anything about it. His complaint (here) is entirely about what OTHER people are doing. It is strictly 'any way but my way it bad'.
What world do you live in that everyone lives by that model?
You offer nothing to substantiate your claims except good old cycnism, which is worth exactly nothing.
Lets take an example so you can point out exactly where the 'chicanery' is.
Say you have a product, and there is only one version of it (no features). Said product has a BOM (bill of materials) cost of $500, and an MVA (manufacturing value add, what it costs to manufacture) of 10%. The 'cost' of that product is $550. OK so far?
Now you want to add an optional feature to this product. Said feature has a BOM cost of $50, so the 'cost; of this feature is $55. The feature also a sunk development cost of $1 per unit, and a warranty cost of $1 per unit. Total cost of $57. So the product + feature cost would be $607, and the product without the feature would still be $550.
However, as I explained above, there are very real costs associated with having multiple versions of a thing. In addition to the more complex logistics, need for more stocking locations, etc there is a very expensive rework cost involved when the 'mix' that was forecast is wrong. It is not at all unusual for these costs to add 15% or more to the product cost. So now the cost of the product with the feature is $695.75 and the cost without the feature is $632.50. This is with the 'traditional' method of only installing parts that are required.
Now suppose we use the 'always add the parts and enable if required' method. What happens to the cost? Well, you have increased the base BOM cost by $55 (development and warranty do not apply to the base), but have eliminated that 'complexity' 15% bump. The base product now cossts $605, a decrease of $27.50 from the price of the traditional method. And the price of the product with the feature is now $607, a decrease of $88.75 from the traditional method. Where exactly is the 'chicanery'? The manufacturer can, if he wants, drop the 'base' price and add more to the feature price. If he has a 50/50 split of feature/no feature he can remove the BOM cost of the feature from the base price altogether and charge double the BOM cost for the 'feature' price and the people paying for the feature will still only be paying $11.25 more than they would have under the 'traditional' method.
Adding complexity (built-in featiures) adds significant cost. It is the reason why car manufacturers only offer options in 'groups'. Making only a few groups available greaty reduces the complexity (and hence cost) compared to offering each option individually. Generally, the only things you can add individually are things that are easily changed and do not affect the build mix (floor mats, wheel packages, etc). This has nothing to do with 'chicanery' and everything to do with keeping costs down.
I have 30+ years manufacturing engineering experience. These numbers are not at all out of line.
If someone rents the seat warmer for one month and nothing happens, then the heater has been 'installed' and paid for. Part of the money that was paid for goes toward the warranty cost. If it 'comes on when it shouldn't' then some control module somewhere (that probably does way more than the seat heater) is defective and needs to be replaced. Unless you think that a heating element can magically get hot with no electricity applied to it.
Design costs are not a per-unit expense. The design costs for each unit are exactly $0. However, there is a one-time design expense, and the question is: who pays it? A reasonable person would say the people who want the thing that was designed, and nobody else. Your 'they all have the same design cost' implies that the cost should be spread among all customers, even those who don't want it, and that is just stupid.
Your two cars scenario is really dumb. Yes, if those two cars are the ONLY two options to buy then you are correct. Of course, here in the real world that is not the case. In the real world there are hundreds of options to choose from, and they have DIFFERENT prices. At least SOME people (the ones with brains) are going to choose the version that only costs $15000 and does not have all the options. And once again, you fail to mention how this $20K car with all the options is able to be offered at that price. More magic hand-waving away of costs I guess.
For a strictly financial transaction, such as purchasing something, 'not willing to pay for' equates to a value (to you) of $0.
Any 'manufacturing value' that is 'destroyed' by blowing a core pales in comparison to the loss in revenue by giving cores away for free. This is not (or should not be) a difficult concept to grasp.
Your car analogy is still awful, and bears no resemblance to the chip situation. As I said above, blowing a core has very little cost to the manufacturer, but a potentially huge payoff in revenue. Scratching a car after it has been made provides zero revenue benefit (is someone going to buy 2 cars because the first one was scratched) but at a large sunk cost (the painting that has already been done), and hence just a net loss, to a car manufacturer. The two situations are polar opposites.
Seriously? If I only make 4-core chips (good economic sense), but you are only willing to pay for 1 of them, destroying the other three has not in any way destroyed economic value. They have no value because you are not going to pay for them (unless you somehow think the remaining good cores could be sold to someone else). On the other hand, not destroying them is giving away economic value for free, which in fact IS destroying the economic value to me.
Your car example is horribly flawed. The cost of the car is already set. The dealer owes the manufacturer for that car. Scratching the paint in no way reduces the cost of the car, so there is no reason it should reduce the price of the car. On the other hand, if the dealer receives the car with a scratch in it he can tell the manufacturer about it and get the cost reduced. In that case, he could sell the car to you for less if you are willing to take the scratch.
You still don't get it. The only thing you had right in your post was that the cars are physically identical. The high-end cars cost no more to MANUFACTURE than the low end cars, but they certainly cost more to MAKE. Making a car involves more than just manufacturing. It also involves design, testing, marketing, and support (warranty). And when you consider THOSE costs, clearly the high-end DOES cost more than the low end (for instance, a car without a seat heater 'installed' will never have a valid warranty claim for non-functioning seat heater).
As for 'value for price' - if I don't want a seat heater, the value of one is $0. If I must pay for a heater I didn't want (because you don't offer an option), then my 'value for price' has dropped. I don't really care if you put extra parts in there or not, I am not paying for them. The parts being there add NO value for me. On the other hand, if I do want a seat heater, then there is value in one for me. I will pay for that value. Again, I don't really care how you provide what I want, as long as I get my value out of it.
I'll never understand why people such as yourself determine 'value' based on not how much something is worth to you, but by how much it costs to manufacture. Makes no sense at all. I wonder if you also insist that your employer pay you based not on how much your work is worth to him, but by how much it 'costs' you to perform that work (which is essentially $0).
Wrong. The only way your example and statement makes sense is if you believe that the bulk of the price you pay for a chip is the actual manufacturing cost. And if you beleive that, you are sadly mistaken. The bulk of the cost is the sunk and fixed costs involved in development, tooling, fabs, etc. Those costs are amortized over each CORE sold, not each CHIP. Intel can NOT be profitable selling chips at only the low end price, they can be profitable selling chips at the AVERAGE price they get.
So why not just sell chips at the average price? Because not everyone NEEDS or is willing to pay for a high-end chip. Could they make different versions of the chip with different numbers of core in them? Sure, but that would drive costs UP not down.
If you only want/need one core, why should you have to pay for 2.5 (average number) cores? And if you need four cores, why shouldn't you pay for them?
The only thing 'unhealthy' here is your understanding of manufacturing, business, and economics. Don't beleive everything you thought you learned in high school economics. They real world is much more complicated.
Haha! Nice one. I find it interesting that you provide no mechanism by which this 'competitor' will be able to crush you on price.
Assume two competitors. Both have similar development, setup, and warranty costs. Both have the same product set. Both have similar profit margins. Now, explain how the one with the least efficient manufacturing process is going 'crush the other one on cost'. Yes, the first competitor may have spent money on creating the 'disable' feature, but that is a one-time cost and can be amortized over multiple products. On the other hand, the one with the inefficient manufacturing is paying for that inefficiecy on every single unit built, forever. I fail to see how that is going to allow him to 'crush anyone on cost'.
Which leaves one option - something other than the ability to enable/disable features is going on. So what is it? Is the 'cheap' competitor only selling one product (the one with the feature)? If so, that leaves the door wide open for some third competitor to come in and offer a model without the feature, 'crushing him on price'. Now you are only able to sell to people who want the feature. No problem, except that now all of the sunk and fixed costs for everything except this feature, which were previously spread across both models with and without the feature, must be borne by your single offering. Oops, your price per unit just shot WAY up. And the same thing is happening to the competitor who only offered the cheap model, which is no longer so cheap.
I have a feeling that your 'healthy' market contains some sort of magic. Please explain what it is.
Complete bullshit. The only time what you said would be true (and it is NEVER the case) is when the BOM cost is the ONLY cost associated with something.
Let's say I spend $10M designing, developing, and testing some new feature. I send the drawings out to get bids on the parts, and I get quotes that it will cost $10 to manufacture each part - that is my BOM cost. Now I spend more money updating my manufacturing processes, tooling, etc to install the part.
But now I have a problem. The complexities involved in manufacturing two versions of my product (with and without the new feature) increases the cost of BOTH versions of the product. Logistics, storage, spare parts, etc all have a cost associated with them, and the possibility of guessing wrong on the 'mix' of products (too many of one type get unsold, not enough of the other type leaves money on the table) is a real risk also. So, it is entirely possible that is is actually cheaper to include my $10 part in both versions and enable it only if the customer wants.
So why have the split offering version at all? Because I still have the $10M development cost plus the other fixed costs to recoup. Also, since no manufacturing process is perfect, I have warranty costs associated with the parts. If I spread those costs over all products then I have no 'cheap' option to sell to my customers. I see absolutely nothing wrong with charging only the people who want to use a feature for that feature.
Your post (and many like it) shows that you know nothing of manufacturing (or business in general). Unfortunately this is all too prevalent on slashdot.
There is cost and risk associated with every choice you give your customer that involves manufacturing. Take the example of seat heaters. Suppose you offer cloth seats in gray or red, and leather seats in black or tan. Any of these can come with a seat heater or not. You now have 8 different seat configurations to deal with. Obviously this has a cost associated with it. You need more complicated logistics, your manufacturing processes are more complex (add heater/don't add heater), you need more space to store parts because you have more part numbers, etc. There is also risk - you must hope that you guess right on the 'mix' of seats you make. If you make too many red cloth seats with heaters, you have the risk of not selling them, or having to sell them at reduced price. If you don't make enough, you leave money on the table. Reducing the amount of complexity can result in a SIGNIFICANT reduction in cost.
On the other hand, there is obviously a cost associated with installing seat heaters in every car. This is the BOM cost of the heater itself, and is, unfortunately, the only cost that is considered by people such as yourself. However, the BOM cost of a seat heater is probaby pretty low. The manufacturing efficiencies gained by reducing the complexity of the offering could actually result in ALL seats being cheaper by putting heaters in them all.
So, why don't they just put the heaters in every car then, for free? Because there are additional costs, unrelated to the BOM cost, that you have ignored. Before the first heater can be installed, it and it's control system needs to be designed and tested. Manufacturing processes need to be created. Assemblers need to be trained. Tooling needs to be purchased or created. All of that requires money, and can be a significant cost. Before a heater can be sold people need to know the option is available - more money. And after the sale, there are warranty costs.
So, who should pay those non-BOM related costs? Everyone who buys a car, or only the people who want/have a use for seat heaters? The answer seems obvious.
Now, who gets 'hurt' by doing this? Nobody. The person who doesn't want a heater does not pay any more for their car (maybe they even pay less because of the reduction in complexity). The person who wants a heater pays for it and gets one. And the manufacturer has simpler processes and a better chance at giving the customer exactly what they want.
The only people who have a problem with this sort of thing are the ones who think BOM cost == value, and completely ignore all other costs and benefits.
The only thing 'utterly stupid' is you. Nowhere does it say they are going to produce a million animals. It says, quite clearly, that they are going to sequence the genomes of a million animals (and a million plants, and a million people).
Right. I understand the reason they are doing it (research), but the GP seemed to think that somehow cloning would lead to more food being available.
Wait, you never heard of 'eliminating variables'?
How is cloning in any way more efficient than traditional breeding? This says they can do 2 implantations a day. I bet a regular pig farm can do way more than that.
Why do idiots such as yourself keep repeating this nonsense? Who, exactly, is 'beholden' to Monsanto? Farmers choose to plant GMO because, even though they have to pay mean old Monsanto, it is more profitable for them than planting non-GMO.
It was never free, or even free-ish. It was just that is used to be paid for by someone else (the sponsors). In turn, you, the viewer, 'paid' the sponsor by watching his ads and maybe buying his product. If you are not willing to 'pay' the sponsor, then he is not willing to pay for you to be able to watch TV for free. Quite simple. Quit acting like something has been taken away from you, or that the TV networks are somehow greedy by still needing to be paid for what they produce.
Maybe you should call and explain to them exactly how 'getting eyes on the product' leads to revenue, and more importantly, more revenue than they make by billing for views.
You manage to make it sound like Google (queue heavenly sounds) invented the ad supported business. ABC was an ad-supported business for decades before Google ever existed. What you fail to realize is that people don't want ads interrupting their TV viewing. The only real choices are: even more intrusive ads (overlays, etc), or get paid directly for the content, or some mix of both. If you have a better solution, lets hear it.
Fountains are a good bet. For instance, a certain large, well-known company that owns theme parks and resorts has recently added RFID chips to the soda cups they sell. When you go to a self-service fountain, the fountain checks if the cup is allowed to be filled. They check to see if the cup is from this location, if it is within an allowed 'free refill' time, and if it is being used too often (you must wait a few minutes before it can be refilled). No more buying a single cup and walking around all day getting 'free refills'. No more buying a single cup then giving all 8 kids a soda by pouring from the purchased cup into your own cup over and over.