I have a job too. However, $5 here and there adds up. That's why I pack a lunch instead of going out to eat with my coworkers because it's foolish to waste $30 or so a week on lunch - so that's saving about $1,500 a year that I can spend on more important things like paying for my masters, buying a new tv, buying video game consoles, buying books, putting towards a nice new car, etc - things that are made to last, at least for many years.
Oh, and I'm far from a "long voice", most people I know only use free apps on their smartphone because they don't live in their parents basement and as such, they have better / more important things to spend their money on.
So, according to you, it's "seriously flawed reasoning" to value the money I work hard for and not piss it away? I wish I had your job then!
It doesn't matter how much it costs or how "useful" (a very relative term) it is - if it's something that is tied to only using an iPhone or a Palm or an Android phone, then it's not worth buying. It's the same reason I won't buy a Kindle or other ebook reader that uses DRM, because then my books are locked to that brand. It's also the same reason I refuse to buy games with DRM with limited installs that prevent me from being able to use my software on any computer I might purchase.
If you want to be short-sighted and piss away your money on apps, then throw that money away in a year or two when you change phones, thats you're own stupidity. However, claiming that someone is wrong for wanting to spend their money wisely is just being arrogant and foolish.
I (in general) agree. I'm not sure if we need laws but I never bought an app for my iPhone 3GS (getting an Evo in th very near future) and I won't buy any apps on Android either. Why? Because if I pay money for apps, then I lose that money if I switch to a different type of phone because I feel the new phone is better. If I could buy Awesome App from company X and have access to that app on iPhone, Android, and WebOS without having to rebuy it, THEN I'd be willing to pay for apps. Until that happens, I stick with the freebies.
It's scary how many people in Western countries think Muslims are beyond reproach though. I was in an IRC channel a few months back (don't ask me which, I sure as hell don't remember) and I was playing around with different screen names. While doing this, I found out that the names Jesus and God were banned, so a friend suggested I try Allah - that was allowed. After I change it to that, some Muslim starts foaming at the mouth about how he's going to hunt me down and kill me for "insulting" his god merely by making my screen name Allah (despite the fact that I didn't say a single unkind or inappropriate thing while I had that name on). As you would expect, everyone in the room told him to STFU and asked him to stop being an irrational lunatic, right? Wrong, they vilified me and defended the Muslim threatening to kill someone just over a damn screen name.
The Muslim extremists have already won - politicians are too cowardly to stand up to them because they might lose a few votes and most citizens are afraid to stand up to them because they might be called "mean" or "racist".
Exactly. If you read the questions on that "test", it's not measuring your ability to feel for others, it's measuring if you want to absolve people of the consequences of their actions. When something bad happens to a good person, yes, I feel bad for them. If something bad happens to a bad person or someone does something stupid to bring it on themselves, then no, I don't feel bad for them.
All last quarter Verizon was running a two-for-one offer. Buy an Android phone (with a two-year contract, of course), get a second one for free.
Close, but not quite correct. Verizon was running a two-for-one smartphone offer. It was not specific to Android, nor did the second phone have to be an Android phone even if the first one was.
There are already many tablets that are portable computers; they just don't sell well.
Show me a tablet running a full OS that costs as little as $499. When you find a tablet running Windows that is in the same price range as the iPad, THEN you can compare how well they sell. Currently a tablet pc costs around $1,500-$2,000 - hardly a fair comparison since the overwhelming majority of people won't spend more than $700 on a computer. Hell, I only spent $900 on my quad-core, dual video card gaming system.
I did quote where you said it, you said "Not at all" when I said that people won't buy a product when they can get a similar one for 1/4 the cost.
If you had said "that's not the only reason" or "that's not the main reason", then you'd have ground to stand on. You didn't though, you said "not at all" which means that the price of the tablet pc has nothing to do with the purchasing decision.
Also, I never disputed your claim that there are some potential usability issues with tablets, merely your fallacious claim that those usability issues were the ONLY reason that most people don't buy tablets.
No, if you bothered to read I said you can hook up a bluetooth keyboard and mouse "in a case where you'd really need it". I never said it would be the main mode of input or that everyone would want to use them at all. Just that for the certain applications that come along where you feel it's necessary, you can use a keyboard and mouse because you're not FORCED to use any one form of input.
So how is that better than an iPad, where you can use a bluetooth keyboard with it as well? And use software specifically designed for this device?
Because, as someone who owns an iPhone, I can tell you that there's virtually nothing worthwhile for office / productivity apps for the iPhone / iPad. A tablet PC (regardless of if it's running Windows, Linux, or OS X) would have a truly usable software library that you'll never see on media consumption devices like an iPad.
Wow, you really don't understand the concept of "specialized tools", do you? It's a tablet when you need it to be and a laptop when a tablet isn't good enough. If you're travelling anywhere, you're going to be taking a bag to carry the laptop or tablet and it's charger, how hard is it to toss a keyboard and mouse in there too?
Bullshit. I said that the fact that companies ridiculously overprice tablet pc's has kept them from becoming popular. Your response was "Not at all". Ergo, you are saying price has no impact on people's purchasing decisions.
So, according to you, people don't look at price when deciding to buy a product? I think it's time for you to meet a friend of mine - her name is Reality.
Actually, the only tablet pc's I've found for sale are all listed under the "business computer" section of the websites - and as MS has shown, businesses are not nearly as concerned with what a product costs as an individual buying for personal use is. The fact that most businesses have deals with only one vendor (Dell, HP, etc)and the fact that only a few companies even make tablet pc's also dramatically cuts down on the competition.
With the rise of netbooks, getting x86 tablets in the 10-14inch range for the kind of money you want seems rather more plausible. Just not, apparently, from HP
I sure hope so - and soon. I've applied for grad school and I'd love to use a tablet to take notes on as well as reading any pdf's or other documents I need for school.
You do realize that there are these things called "bluetooth keyboards and mice" that let you add a keyboard and mouse to a tablet in a case where you'd really need it, right?
It's not hard to even just have a simply combo keyboard / collapsable stand for the tablet that you can toss in your bag. The biggest reason people want something like a Windows tablet is so that you can write notes by hand, potentially convert it to text (I've only seen limited demos of the software, so I don't know how well it really works), and link it out to something like OneNote to organize, search, and share your notes - this would be a godsend for people in college / grad school.
If people were so serious about buying Windows based slates, the sales of "Tablet PCs" wouldn't have been sucking for the last decade.
Wrong. If tablet pc prices weren't so much higher (on average 3-4 times higher) than a comparably priced laptop, then tablet pc sales wouldn't have sucked for the last decade. I get it, it costs more to add a touch screen - but it does NOT cost $1,000 more (as evidenced by the fact that the iPad with the traditional Apple mark-up starts at $499). The reason sales have sucked is that companies don't want to charge more for newer, superior technology - they want to charge obscenely more for it and the result is that the overwhelming majority of people just decide not to buy the device instead.
I want a tablet running Windows (or even a full Linux distro with the ability for me to at least do hand written notes), but I'm NOT paying $1,000 or more for it. I'll pay in the $500-$600 price range for a tablet in the 10"-14" range, which is what I would pay for a laptop in the 15"-17" range.
I wonder if that motivation isn't at play here, try to politicize the education standards so much that people lose faith in a state run education system.
I dunno, I think just looking at graduation rates, test scores, and general academic performance in general (both in high school and early college) in the US caused the majority to lose faith in state run education.
I can make arguments both for and against public education. However, I think it's pretty easy for most people to agree that the public education system in the US is an utter failure. Notice I didn't say "public education is a failure", I think Germany has a great education system and the US would do well to study Germany's system. I'm simply pointing out that the US public education system is utter crap and it doesn't even remotely prepare kids well enough to compete with the rest of the world.
I haven't read all of the proposed changes (obviously, I doubt anyone has), and I've heard a few things that I do take issue with. However, anyone who's compared a history textbook from the 70's, 80's, or even early 90's against the books we have today will tell that you in the late 90's the books changed all of the sudden and started pushing a political agenda (I know many teachers who will admit to seeing this in their books, as well as the differences in what kids talk about being taught in school when talking to younger cousins / nieces / nephews). So, while I can't say if Texas' changes are right or wrong without having looked at them, I definitely think that we do need to do a thorough review of the textbooks used in schools and make sure that any political bias (left or right) is taken out. Kids should be learning facts, not political views.
Just a heads up since you want to buy an Evo - I was considering breaking my contract with AT&T and ditching my iPhone 3GS for an Evo until I found out that there's a $10 / month fine on any Sprint customer who has an Evo. Even in 3G only areas too - you can use the same Android 2.1 on it that you can on the Samsung Moment that Sprint has, run the same apps, and use the same amount of bandwidth, but you pay another $240 over the two year contract. Sprint's BS justification for this is that it has a bigger screen and processor, therefore you'll download way more than the 5 GB limit they have on their normal 3G data plan. Needless to say, people are pretty pissed off about this.
The only time I care about my car's maintenance needs are when I'm actually driving it.
And I think that's a big part of why Americans aren't too on top of keeping their car maintained and only have anything done after something breaks. Despite being a car enthusiast, I know I don't do a good job of keeping track of preventative maintenance beyond oil changes. If you could have an app on your phone that could say "Hey, you've driven X thousand miles since these tires were installed and they're only good for X+5,000 miles, so you should get new tires soon" or "Hey, you're coming up on 75,000 miles, you should take it in and get the belts and hoses checked so that they don't break / spring a leak on you while you're driving". No one would be forcing you to use the app, but I could definitely see a lot of people who would get a lot of usefulness out of such a thing.
Also, stop taking marketing so seriously. It makes you sound like a fool. Everyone knows that marketing is exaggeration at best.
If you'd bothered to read my post, you'd have noticed that I said how nerds like us will research a product and decide if it fits our needs, but the average technologically incompetent person won't do that and will be mislead by the BS advertising and lies told by salespepole.
And no, I'm not imagining Apple marketing it as a computer - they never use the word "computer" but they talk about how it'll do "everything you need", which again if you bothered to read my post, it can't, especially since it needs to be synced with a computer to get files to / from it due to the design of the iPad.
Buy one if you want one, don't buy one if you don't - but don't try to tell everyone that the ads from Apple proclaiming the iPad to be the greatest thing since the birth of Christ don't exist, when we can see them on tv and the internet daily.
Sounds to me like you want a laptop, not an iPad. Due to this, I'd suggest getting a laptop, not an iPad, since the iPad doesn't seem to fit your use case.
And that's where my issue with Apple lies in regards to the iPad. IMO, Apple is blatantly misrepresenting the iPad as a computer, when in fact, it's not. They want to make it out to be a device that will do all of your computing needs when, even if you just browse the web, the lack of flash alone prevents it from doing that due to the prominence of flash on the internet (I'm not saying anything for or against flash, simply stating a fact that there are a LOT of sites that use flash, including youtube). I'm well aware that us nerds will research the iPad and make a decision to buy one - however, by their own admission for a long time, Apple's target audience is those who aren't too bright and sure as hell won't research a product before buying it. THAT is what irks me, is that they'll market the iPad to Technology-incompetent Tobi as being the device to do everything she could ever want and then she'll buy one, then find out after the fact that it DOESN'T do that (hell, without a COMPUTER to go with it, you can't even put movies / music on it that you don't download through iTunes because it has no usb / card reader).
I may not like the iPad, but I'm not going around telling people not to buy one or that they're stupid for buying one. But I sure wish Apple would be more honest in their marketing, though that goes for a lot of companies....
Actually, due to the reduced monthly fee with T-Mobile if you bought the phone unlocked, after 2 years savings the phone would cost around $55 - so about $145 LESS than if you bought the phone subsidized by a 2-year contract. The real reason for the "failure" you speak of is that the overwhelming majority of Americans suck at math.
Exactly - people take the money they don't spend on overpriced software and use it on other things (eating out, nice clothes, something for the house, a new computer, new tv, whatever) and if those people were forced to pay for those items (and were somehow unable to simply choose not to use them), it would simply mean that $51 billion would disappear from the rest of the economy and go into software. Claiming that it would result in jobs is a fallacious argument because they are ignoring all the money that wouldn't be spent on other things as a result of people spending more on software.
The solution? Stop overcharging for software (which is a huge motivation for the average person to pirate software such as Windows or Office) - charge reasonable prices and people will be much more likely to buy your product than pirate it. I think Malwarebytes is a great example of not overcharging - most AV software wants $60 and then $50 a year for updates, meanwhile Malwarebytes charges nothing to get the software and only wants a one time fee of $25 for a lifetime license to use on all of your personal computers. That's why Malwarebytes is the first AV product I've ever paid money for instead of just using free alternatives - because they charged a reasonable price instead of gouging people like their competition does.
this is why morons queue at midnight for the latest game release, Harry Potter book or overpriced Apple gadget.
You're right about two of the three, but you're wrong about Harry Potter release parties - people go to those because they want to start reading the book ASAP because they love the story and can't wait to see what comes next (you also typically get a discount if you pre-ordered). I know what their reasoning is because I went to a couple midnight releases of it and talked to the people there - I've yet to ever hear anyone brag about being the first to have a book; I've only heard people who were excited to read a new book and were glad to get it the minute it went on sale so they could stay up all night reading it.
Still, I've more than enough old games to play through again, load mods into or play via an emulator
Me too - that's why I have no problem boycotting games with DRM, because out of all the games I've played, I still have stacks that I never got around to beating.
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I have a job too. However, $5 here and there adds up. That's why I pack a lunch instead of going out to eat with my coworkers because it's foolish to waste $30 or so a week on lunch - so that's saving about $1,500 a year that I can spend on more important things like paying for my masters, buying a new tv, buying video game consoles, buying books, putting towards a nice new car, etc - things that are made to last, at least for many years.
Oh, and I'm far from a "long voice", most people I know only use free apps on their smartphone because they don't live in their parents basement and as such, they have better / more important things to spend their money on.
So, according to you, it's "seriously flawed reasoning" to value the money I work hard for and not piss it away? I wish I had your job then!
It doesn't matter how much it costs or how "useful" (a very relative term) it is - if it's something that is tied to only using an iPhone or a Palm or an Android phone, then it's not worth buying. It's the same reason I won't buy a Kindle or other ebook reader that uses DRM, because then my books are locked to that brand. It's also the same reason I refuse to buy games with DRM with limited installs that prevent me from being able to use my software on any computer I might purchase.
If you want to be short-sighted and piss away your money on apps, then throw that money away in a year or two when you change phones, thats you're own stupidity. However, claiming that someone is wrong for wanting to spend their money wisely is just being arrogant and foolish.
I (in general) agree. I'm not sure if we need laws but I never bought an app for my iPhone 3GS (getting an Evo in th very near future) and I won't buy any apps on Android either. Why? Because if I pay money for apps, then I lose that money if I switch to a different type of phone because I feel the new phone is better. If I could buy Awesome App from company X and have access to that app on iPhone, Android, and WebOS without having to rebuy it, THEN I'd be willing to pay for apps. Until that happens, I stick with the freebies.
It's scary how many people in Western countries think Muslims are beyond reproach though. I was in an IRC channel a few months back (don't ask me which, I sure as hell don't remember) and I was playing around with different screen names. While doing this, I found out that the names Jesus and God were banned, so a friend suggested I try Allah - that was allowed. After I change it to that, some Muslim starts foaming at the mouth about how he's going to hunt me down and kill me for "insulting" his god merely by making my screen name Allah (despite the fact that I didn't say a single unkind or inappropriate thing while I had that name on). As you would expect, everyone in the room told him to STFU and asked him to stop being an irrational lunatic, right? Wrong, they vilified me and defended the Muslim threatening to kill someone just over a damn screen name.
The Muslim extremists have already won - politicians are too cowardly to stand up to them because they might lose a few votes and most citizens are afraid to stand up to them because they might be called "mean" or "racist".
Exactly. If you read the questions on that "test", it's not measuring your ability to feel for others, it's measuring if you want to absolve people of the consequences of their actions. When something bad happens to a good person, yes, I feel bad for them. If something bad happens to a bad person or someone does something stupid to bring it on themselves, then no, I don't feel bad for them.
All last quarter Verizon was running a two-for-one offer. Buy an Android phone (with a two-year contract, of course), get a second one for free.
Close, but not quite correct. Verizon was running a two-for-one smartphone offer. It was not specific to Android, nor did the second phone have to be an Android phone even if the first one was.
There are already many tablets that are portable computers; they just don't sell well.
Show me a tablet running a full OS that costs as little as $499. When you find a tablet running Windows that is in the same price range as the iPad, THEN you can compare how well they sell. Currently a tablet pc costs around $1,500-$2,000 - hardly a fair comparison since the overwhelming majority of people won't spend more than $700 on a computer. Hell, I only spent $900 on my quad-core, dual video card gaming system.
I did quote where you said it, you said "Not at all" when I said that people won't buy a product when they can get a similar one for 1/4 the cost.
If you had said "that's not the only reason" or "that's not the main reason", then you'd have ground to stand on. You didn't though, you said "not at all" which means that the price of the tablet pc has nothing to do with the purchasing decision.
Also, I never disputed your claim that there are some potential usability issues with tablets, merely your fallacious claim that those usability issues were the ONLY reason that most people don't buy tablets.
No, if you bothered to read I said you can hook up a bluetooth keyboard and mouse "in a case where you'd really need it". I never said it would be the main mode of input or that everyone would want to use them at all. Just that for the certain applications that come along where you feel it's necessary, you can use a keyboard and mouse because you're not FORCED to use any one form of input.
So how is that better than an iPad, where you can use a bluetooth keyboard with it as well? And use software specifically designed for this device?
Because, as someone who owns an iPhone, I can tell you that there's virtually nothing worthwhile for office / productivity apps for the iPhone / iPad. A tablet PC (regardless of if it's running Windows, Linux, or OS X) would have a truly usable software library that you'll never see on media consumption devices like an iPad.
Wow, you really don't understand the concept of "specialized tools", do you? It's a tablet when you need it to be and a laptop when a tablet isn't good enough. If you're travelling anywhere, you're going to be taking a bag to carry the laptop or tablet and it's charger, how hard is it to toss a keyboard and mouse in there too?
I assure you, it's what you did say. Whether or not you meant to say that and simply worded it poorly is another issue. =)
Bullshit. I said that the fact that companies ridiculously overprice tablet pc's has kept them from becoming popular. Your response was "Not at all". Ergo, you are saying price has no impact on people's purchasing decisions.
So, according to you, people don't look at price when deciding to buy a product? I think it's time for you to meet a friend of mine - her name is Reality.
Actually, the only tablet pc's I've found for sale are all listed under the "business computer" section of the websites - and as MS has shown, businesses are not nearly as concerned with what a product costs as an individual buying for personal use is. The fact that most businesses have deals with only one vendor (Dell, HP, etc)and the fact that only a few companies even make tablet pc's also dramatically cuts down on the competition.
With the rise of netbooks, getting x86 tablets in the 10-14inch range for the kind of money you want seems rather more plausible. Just not, apparently, from HP
I sure hope so - and soon. I've applied for grad school and I'd love to use a tablet to take notes on as well as reading any pdf's or other documents I need for school.
You do realize that there are these things called "bluetooth keyboards and mice" that let you add a keyboard and mouse to a tablet in a case where you'd really need it, right?
It's not hard to even just have a simply combo keyboard / collapsable stand for the tablet that you can toss in your bag. The biggest reason people want something like a Windows tablet is so that you can write notes by hand, potentially convert it to text (I've only seen limited demos of the software, so I don't know how well it really works), and link it out to something like OneNote to organize, search, and share your notes - this would be a godsend for people in college / grad school.
If people were so serious about buying Windows based slates, the sales of "Tablet PCs" wouldn't have been sucking for the last decade.
Wrong. If tablet pc prices weren't so much higher (on average 3-4 times higher) than a comparably priced laptop, then tablet pc sales wouldn't have sucked for the last decade. I get it, it costs more to add a touch screen - but it does NOT cost $1,000 more (as evidenced by the fact that the iPad with the traditional Apple mark-up starts at $499). The reason sales have sucked is that companies don't want to charge more for newer, superior technology - they want to charge obscenely more for it and the result is that the overwhelming majority of people just decide not to buy the device instead.
I want a tablet running Windows (or even a full Linux distro with the ability for me to at least do hand written notes), but I'm NOT paying $1,000 or more for it. I'll pay in the $500-$600 price range for a tablet in the 10"-14" range, which is what I would pay for a laptop in the 15"-17" range.
I wonder if that motivation isn't at play here, try to politicize the education standards so much that people lose faith in a state run education system.
I dunno, I think just looking at graduation rates, test scores, and general academic performance in general (both in high school and early college) in the US caused the majority to lose faith in state run education.
I can make arguments both for and against public education. However, I think it's pretty easy for most people to agree that the public education system in the US is an utter failure. Notice I didn't say "public education is a failure", I think Germany has a great education system and the US would do well to study Germany's system. I'm simply pointing out that the US public education system is utter crap and it doesn't even remotely prepare kids well enough to compete with the rest of the world.
I haven't read all of the proposed changes (obviously, I doubt anyone has), and I've heard a few things that I do take issue with. However, anyone who's compared a history textbook from the 70's, 80's, or even early 90's against the books we have today will tell that you in the late 90's the books changed all of the sudden and started pushing a political agenda (I know many teachers who will admit to seeing this in their books, as well as the differences in what kids talk about being taught in school when talking to younger cousins / nieces / nephews). So, while I can't say if Texas' changes are right or wrong without having looked at them, I definitely think that we do need to do a thorough review of the textbooks used in schools and make sure that any political bias (left or right) is taken out. Kids should be learning facts, not political views.
Just a heads up since you want to buy an Evo - I was considering breaking my contract with AT&T and ditching my iPhone 3GS for an Evo until I found out that there's a $10 / month fine on any Sprint customer who has an Evo. Even in 3G only areas too - you can use the same Android 2.1 on it that you can on the Samsung Moment that Sprint has, run the same apps, and use the same amount of bandwidth, but you pay another $240 over the two year contract. Sprint's BS justification for this is that it has a bigger screen and processor, therefore you'll download way more than the 5 GB limit they have on their normal 3G data plan. Needless to say, people are pretty pissed off about this.
The only time I care about my car's maintenance needs are when I'm actually driving it.
And I think that's a big part of why Americans aren't too on top of keeping their car maintained and only have anything done after something breaks. Despite being a car enthusiast, I know I don't do a good job of keeping track of preventative maintenance beyond oil changes. If you could have an app on your phone that could say "Hey, you've driven X thousand miles since these tires were installed and they're only good for X+5,000 miles, so you should get new tires soon" or "Hey, you're coming up on 75,000 miles, you should take it in and get the belts and hoses checked so that they don't break / spring a leak on you while you're driving". No one would be forcing you to use the app, but I could definitely see a lot of people who would get a lot of usefulness out of such a thing.
Also, stop taking marketing so seriously. It makes you sound like a fool. Everyone knows that marketing is exaggeration at best.
If you'd bothered to read my post, you'd have noticed that I said how nerds like us will research a product and decide if it fits our needs, but the average technologically incompetent person won't do that and will be mislead by the BS advertising and lies told by salespepole.
And no, I'm not imagining Apple marketing it as a computer - they never use the word "computer" but they talk about how it'll do "everything you need", which again if you bothered to read my post, it can't, especially since it needs to be synced with a computer to get files to / from it due to the design of the iPad.
Buy one if you want one, don't buy one if you don't - but don't try to tell everyone that the ads from Apple proclaiming the iPad to be the greatest thing since the birth of Christ don't exist, when we can see them on tv and the internet daily.
Sounds to me like you want a laptop, not an iPad. Due to this, I'd suggest getting a laptop, not an iPad, since the iPad doesn't seem to fit your use case.
And that's where my issue with Apple lies in regards to the iPad. IMO, Apple is blatantly misrepresenting the iPad as a computer, when in fact, it's not. They want to make it out to be a device that will do all of your computing needs when, even if you just browse the web, the lack of flash alone prevents it from doing that due to the prominence of flash on the internet (I'm not saying anything for or against flash, simply stating a fact that there are a LOT of sites that use flash, including youtube). I'm well aware that us nerds will research the iPad and make a decision to buy one - however, by their own admission for a long time, Apple's target audience is those who aren't too bright and sure as hell won't research a product before buying it. THAT is what irks me, is that they'll market the iPad to Technology-incompetent Tobi as being the device to do everything she could ever want and then she'll buy one, then find out after the fact that it DOESN'T do that (hell, without a COMPUTER to go with it, you can't even put movies / music on it that you don't download through iTunes because it has no usb / card reader).
I may not like the iPad, but I'm not going around telling people not to buy one or that they're stupid for buying one. But I sure wish Apple would be more honest in their marketing, though that goes for a lot of companies....
Actually, due to the reduced monthly fee with T-Mobile if you bought the phone unlocked, after 2 years savings the phone would cost around $55 - so about $145 LESS than if you bought the phone subsidized by a 2-year contract. The real reason for the "failure" you speak of is that the overwhelming majority of Americans suck at math.
Exactly - people take the money they don't spend on overpriced software and use it on other things (eating out, nice clothes, something for the house, a new computer, new tv, whatever) and if those people were forced to pay for those items (and were somehow unable to simply choose not to use them), it would simply mean that $51 billion would disappear from the rest of the economy and go into software. Claiming that it would result in jobs is a fallacious argument because they are ignoring all the money that wouldn't be spent on other things as a result of people spending more on software.
The solution? Stop overcharging for software (which is a huge motivation for the average person to pirate software such as Windows or Office) - charge reasonable prices and people will be much more likely to buy your product than pirate it. I think Malwarebytes is a great example of not overcharging - most AV software wants $60 and then $50 a year for updates, meanwhile Malwarebytes charges nothing to get the software and only wants a one time fee of $25 for a lifetime license to use on all of your personal computers. That's why Malwarebytes is the first AV product I've ever paid money for instead of just using free alternatives - because they charged a reasonable price instead of gouging people like their competition does.
this is why morons queue at midnight for the latest game release, Harry Potter book or overpriced Apple gadget.
You're right about two of the three, but you're wrong about Harry Potter release parties - people go to those because they want to start reading the book ASAP because they love the story and can't wait to see what comes next (you also typically get a discount if you pre-ordered). I know what their reasoning is because I went to a couple midnight releases of it and talked to the people there - I've yet to ever hear anyone brag about being the first to have a book; I've only heard people who were excited to read a new book and were glad to get it the minute it went on sale so they could stay up all night reading it.
Still, I've more than enough old games to play through again, load mods into or play via an emulator
Me too - that's why I have no problem boycotting games with DRM, because out of all the games I've played, I still have stacks that I never got around to beating.