When buying through the Internet, comparing prices is much easier than when buying in brick-and-mortar(-and-cement) shops. At the same time, as users became more experienced, they discover Price Comparison sites (to find beter prices) and search engines (to find other e-shops) - thus increasing the ability of finding beter prices.
The resulting price erosion decreases the e-shops profits.
In order two compensate for this, e-shops can take one of two paths:
- Reduce costs
- Compete on features - differenciate from the competiotion.
The first path is the one being taken by Amazon - they are trying to use their size to increase efficiency in the package and delivery (ie a small number of big warehouses with efficient - and expensive - automated processes) thus decreasing costs. Since they are competing on prices, prices cannot easily go. On the other end of the scale, it gets increasingly difficult to cut costs (the same rule as in software development applies - the first 10% of investment get you 90% of the improvment). Increasing profits in this situation is thus a difficult task.
The second option is to offer exclusive/improved features than the competition. E-shops have great difficulty in differenciating from the competition in anything other than prices. Site structuring is getting similar, and any e-shop with the necessary basic structure in place (web catalog with search engine) can compete in price with the greatest of the industry. Extra web-based-facilities like costumer reviews are in practice lightly-coupled to the buy - you can easily search books in Amazon, check the costumer reviews, and then go buy it somewhere else.
At the same time, differenciation in more physical properties (like fast deliver and swift costumer service) presents e-shops in a less then ideal light by comparison with traditional shops (the fastest delivery is going to a bricks&mortar shop, buy something an take it home)
In the end this will mostly be good for the consumer:
- The ones that are more interested in spending less money will find cheaper prices.
- The ones more interested in features will be offered all sorts of special (and as of yet unimagined) features by both b&m-shops and e-shops.
It saddens me to see Microsoft exiting the highway of consumer satisfaction into the dirt road of security.
As a long time fan and appreciator the Microsoft way, i feel i must stand up and ask:
Why?
Microsoft has done more than any other company to turn Desktop Computing into a thriling adventure. From the very moment i turn on my PC, i feel i'm entering a world of wonder and surprise, where new adventures can happen at any moment:
- Maybe Windows will not start-up and i end with a black screen.
- Maybe it will start in VGA mode
- Maybe clicking in the explorer toolbar wil result in a blue screen
- Maybe Word will crash when i'm editing an important document.
- Maybe installing the newest IE will make half my applications stop working.
- Maybe after installing the newest DirectX Windows will stop working.
- Maybe i'll open an e-mail an my PC starts acting funny.
- Maybe i'll get a phone call from my ISP saying a Denial of Service attack to the Whitehouse site has been detected from my machine.
- Maybe the mouse pointer will start moving by itself
- Maybe all my files are deleted.
Why? Why do you want to remove all the thrill and adventure from my life???
That reminds me of a recent survey in some mediterranean country in which 90% of drivers thought they were good drivers and that thought that 80% of the other drivers were bad drivers...
They contract a couple of techies for finding people using multiple computers on one cable connection.
They advertise that they are checking it - preferably through word-of-mouth (or something that looks like word-of-mouth)
They catch one or two people and show them as examples
They manage to scare a couple of idiots into buying their extra-price service where the only differences are probably the removal from the contract of the line that says you cannot use multiple computers and a bigger price.
Come to think of it, if 2) is properly done you don't even need 1).
It's the same principle used in law-enforcement:
Make people believe that if they break the law:
It's very likely that they get caught
If they do get caught the punishment is hard and certain
(As a side note i believe that the big difference in driving styles between mediterranean countries and northern europe countries with similar driving laws, is due to different perceptions of the answers to the "will i get caught?" and the "if i get caught will i get punished?" questions).
Re:Not ready for prime time.
on
Time for a Beer?
·
· Score: 5, Funny
The ability to track my house so I can find my way back home
For a find home system i recommed a donkey or a mule. They can always take you home no mater how drunk you are. Sure, they're a bit out of fashion nowadays, and it's a bit hard to get them in Chrome-blue or Fire-red colors but:
- They're 100% environment friendly
- You can fuel them up by just leaving them in a grassy field for some hours
- They come in a wide variety of grey/brown shades
- You can fit two of them in a garage
Furthermore, they have a long proven track record at taking drunk people home
Maybe Privacy vs Freedom of Information would be one example (as in my privacy vs somebody else's freedom to find information about me)???
I can imagine a situation in which somebody would find and tell everybody about one of my dark secrets (no goatse jokes please). Or maybe start spamming my e-mail, or my mobile phone. Or maybe i'm not accepted by some employer because they got hold of some confidencial medical record that says i've got some mental disease X (again no goatse jokes please).
On the other hand there my liberty to find information about others. Like for example know that a prospective employer is actually a sweat-shop and their so-called bonuses are just hot air. Or that some guy that works with me is paid twice as much, has half the brains, produces a third of what i do and is only there because he's the boss's nephew.
As with everything a balance has to be achieved. Where to stop other people's liberty and start my privacy?
In practice, don't expect others to protect/respect your privacy if you don't protect it yourself. If you are willing to give it up for a few bucks a month - for example by signing in to your local shop's Costumer Card program and answering a form that asks everything about you and your family including the name of your grandmother's cat - then you will in practice have much less privacy.
It has nothing to do with hackers, crackers, RIAAs, MPAAs or the color green - it has all to do with freedom of information:
- I support freedom of information, and by extension those that help make information free.
- I'm against restriction of information (any kind of information - bad, good, usefull or useless). Naturaly i am by extension against those that try to constrain that freedom.
- Which side of the law am i on?
Neither side. My ethics are independent of the law.
Going back to this specific case, i'm against however did the DDoS attacks because they went against other people's freedom to give and receive information.
Indeed, i am absolutly sure that Adobe will give up on half the world's population (Asia) containing the only big market that's still growing at 7.8% (5 times the european rate) a year (China).
Yes, i can just see how incredibly briliant that market strategy is!!!
Kids with nothing to say who are actually products of the old order, such as Fabian et seq, are something entirely different, and hopefully soon forgotten.
I sugest a fully fledged top-level thread for this subject.
Judging from the huge ammount of moderation now going into the parent post (215 at last count), i would say this subject is important to a lot of people (whether they agree or not).
You can also get broadband Internet on cable in many cities in Holland.
The problem here is that in the major cities (my experience Amsterdam) the cable infrastructure is old and getting proper speeds is difficult or even impossible.
I had ADSL before, and as soon as i moved into a place with proper cable i ditched KPN and went for cable. I now have:
- 4 times faster download speed (and about 100x faster upload)
- same price (before the KPN price increase)
- Faster ping times (ADSL around here uses Microsoft VPN which adds at least 100ms delay - no good for multiplayer Quake)
I would expect their no worries mate person (expression graciously stolen from here) to say that the sky is green and the clouds are pink if he tought that would help MS image.
Incidentally, I don't understand why the talking heads were talking about the great need for ground troops. Certainly, it's a little difficult to bomb a deep cave, but I think Desert Storm showed us that with the technology that we currently possess, bombing certainly can make the efforts of ground troops little more than "limited skirmishes", as Mike Myers described the ground war in Iraq in "Wayne's World".
Bombs cannot hold terrain.
Constantly bombing the same place to avoid that the enemy retakes it is not a viable proposition.
You either give two portions of food to each member of each group or you give three portions of food to each member of one group and four to each member of the other group.
In the first case you end up with a bunch of slightly hungry apes.
In the second case you end up with a group of not-hungry apes and a group of well fed apes. Naturally the well fed ones will beat the crap out of the other ones next time food is distributed and keep all of it, plus they will be higher in the hierarchy, plus they will get all the female-apes while the other ones just get the crap beaten out of them if they even try to approach the females....
Really - what is their positive contribution to the system?
As far as i can see, the only positive side of freeloaders is:
They spread the word - thus bringing more users to the system, even some that aren't freeloaders
They might stop being freeloaders (for example: a person that starts with nothing to share but shares what he/she gets)
It feels good to "just share"
Number 1 just adds speed to how fast new users find the system (those which are not freeloaders also "spread the word").
For number 2, if a P2P system allows some sort of "punishment" against freeloaders while at the same time leting them know WHY they are being "punished" probably the number of freeloaders that are "converted" would actually increase.
For number 3, it feels even beter to share when you know that the persons that get stuff from you will share it further.
As i see it, less freeloaders means more bandwith for everybody else.
For example: A fight to the death between Bill Gates and Tux is a much healthier thing to see than them having sex (exactly how they would do it is beyond my imagination).
Everybody! Please think about the little children!
Slashdot Mirror
It's actually forbiden to use artificial hormones in cattle.
There is actually a row going on on the WTO between the US and the EC about this - the US want to export hormone fed beef to Europe, the EC says no.
When buying through the Internet, comparing prices is much easier than when buying in brick-and-mortar(-and-cement) shops. At the same time, as users became more experienced, they discover Price Comparison sites (to find beter prices) and search engines (to find other e-shops) - thus increasing the ability of finding beter prices.
The resulting price erosion decreases the e-shops profits.
In order two compensate for this, e-shops can take one of two paths:
- Reduce costs
- Compete on features - differenciate from the competiotion.
The first path is the one being taken by Amazon - they are trying to use their size to increase efficiency in the package and delivery (ie a small number of big warehouses with efficient - and expensive - automated processes) thus decreasing costs. Since they are competing on prices, prices cannot easily go. On the other end of the scale, it gets increasingly difficult to cut costs (the same rule as in software development applies - the first 10% of investment get you 90% of the improvment). Increasing profits in this situation is thus a difficult task.
The second option is to offer exclusive/improved features than the competition. E-shops have great difficulty in differenciating from the competition in anything other than prices. Site structuring is getting similar, and any e-shop with the necessary basic structure in place (web catalog with search engine) can compete in price with the greatest of the industry. Extra web-based-facilities like costumer reviews are in practice lightly-coupled to the buy - you can easily search books in Amazon, check the costumer reviews, and then go buy it somewhere else.
At the same time, differenciation in more physical properties (like fast deliver and swift costumer service) presents e-shops in a less then ideal light by comparison with traditional shops (the fastest delivery is going to a bricks&mortar shop, buy something an take it home)
In the end this will mostly be good for the consumer:
- The ones that are more interested in spending less money will find cheaper prices.
- The ones more interested in features will be offered all sorts of special (and as of yet unimagined) features by both b&m-shops and e-shops.
Are we there yet? I don't think so!
Dear Bill
It saddens me to see Microsoft exiting the highway of consumer satisfaction into the dirt road of security.
As a long time fan and appreciator the Microsoft way, i feel i must stand up and ask:
Why?
Microsoft has done more than any other company to turn Desktop Computing into a thriling adventure. From the very moment i turn on my PC, i feel i'm entering a world of wonder and surprise, where new adventures can happen at any moment:
- Maybe Windows will not start-up and i end with a black screen.
- Maybe it will start in VGA mode
- Maybe clicking in the explorer toolbar wil result in a blue screen
- Maybe Word will crash when i'm editing an important document.
- Maybe installing the newest IE will make half my applications stop working.
- Maybe after installing the newest DirectX Windows will stop working.
- Maybe i'll open an e-mail an my PC starts acting funny.
- Maybe i'll get a phone call from my ISP saying a Denial of Service attack to the Whitehouse site has been detected from my machine.
- Maybe the mouse pointer will start moving by itself
- Maybe all my files are deleted.
Why? Why do you want to remove all the thrill and adventure from my life???
That reminds me of a recent survey in some mediterranean country in which 90% of drivers thought they were good drivers and that thought that 80% of the other drivers were bad drivers...
Come to think of it, if 2) is properly done you don't even need 1).
It's the same principle used in law-enforcement:
Make people believe that if they break the law:
- It's very likely that they get caught
- If they do get caught the punishment is hard and certain
(As a side note i believe that the big difference in driving styles between mediterranean countries and northern europe countries with similar driving laws, is due to different perceptions of the answers to the "will i get caught?" and the "if i get caught will i get punished?" questions).The ability to track my house so I can find my way back home
For a find home system i recommed a donkey or a mule. They can always take you home no mater how drunk you are. Sure, they're a bit out of fashion nowadays, and it's a bit hard to get them in Chrome-blue or Fire-red colors but:
- They're 100% environment friendly
- You can fuel them up by just leaving them in a grassy field for some hours
- They come in a wide variety of grey/brown shades
- You can fit two of them in a garage
Furthermore, they have a long proven track record at taking drunk people home
There's always that nagging doubt ... that's what makes it so good
Maybe Privacy vs Freedom of Information would be one example (as in my privacy vs somebody else's freedom to find information about me)???
I can imagine a situation in which somebody would find and tell everybody about one of my dark secrets (no goatse jokes please). Or maybe start spamming my e-mail, or my mobile phone. Or maybe i'm not accepted by some employer because they got hold of some confidencial medical record that says i've got some mental disease X (again no goatse jokes please).
On the other hand there my liberty to find information about others. Like for example know that a prospective employer is actually a sweat-shop and their so-called bonuses are just hot air. Or that some guy that works with me is paid twice as much, has half the brains, produces a third of what i do and is only there because he's the boss's nephew.
As with everything a balance has to be achieved. Where to stop other people's liberty and start my privacy?
In practice, don't expect others to protect/respect your privacy if you don't protect it yourself. If you are willing to give it up for a few bucks a month - for example by signing in to your local shop's Costumer Card program and answering a form that asks everything about you and your family including the name of your grandmother's cat - then you will in practice have much less privacy.
As usual this is a question of ethics.
It has nothing to do with hackers, crackers, RIAAs, MPAAs or the color green - it has all to do with freedom of information:
- I support freedom of information, and by extension those that help make information free.
- I'm against restriction of information (any kind of information - bad, good, usefull or useless). Naturaly i am by extension against those that try to constrain that freedom.
- Which side of the law am i on?
Neither side. My ethics are independent of the law.
Going back to this specific case, i'm against however did the DDoS attacks because they went against other people's freedom to give and receive information.
Most people in the lunny-house also think they are sane and everybody else is crazy.
Great way of leaving dirty jokes in public bathrooms
Indeed, i am absolutly sure that Adobe will give up on half the world's population (Asia) containing the only big market that's still growing at 7.8% (5 times the european rate) a year (China).
Yes, i can just see how incredibly briliant that market strategy is!!!
Whose Fabian?
I sugest a fully fledged top-level thread for this subject.
Judging from the huge ammount of moderation now going into the parent post (215 at last count), i would say this subject is important to a lot of people (whether they agree or not).
You can now burn my Karma points
Comparing Dallas (80's soap) with X-Files (90's soap):
Dallas - Bobby has an affair with another woman.
X-Files - Mully gets kidnapped by aliens.
Dallas - Yet another JR scheme to get all the money from the familly.
X-Files - Yet another conspiracy at the highest level.
Dallas - Pamela's dream sequence.
X-Files - Scully's dream sequence.
A method to induce sleep in young humans through the use of pressure waves generated by the female progenitor's vocal chords.
You can also get broadband Internet on cable in many cities in Holland.
The problem here is that in the major cities (my experience Amsterdam) the cable infrastructure is old and getting proper speeds is difficult or even impossible.
I had ADSL before, and as soon as i moved into a place with proper cable i ditched KPN and went for cable. I now have:
- 4 times faster download speed (and about 100x faster upload)
- same price (before the KPN price increase)
- Faster ping times (ADSL around here uses Microsoft VPN which adds at least 100ms delay - no good for multiplayer Quake)
I would expect their no worries mate person (expression graciously stolen from here) to say that the sky is green and the clouds are pink if he tought that would help MS image.
Europeans don't pay taxes in dollars ...
We're definitly not wasting any tax dollars!!!
Incidentally, I don't understand why the talking heads were talking about the great need for ground troops. Certainly, it's a little difficult to bomb a deep cave, but I think Desert Storm showed us that with the technology that we currently possess, bombing certainly can make the efforts of ground troops little more than "limited skirmishes", as Mike Myers described the ground war in Iraq in "Wayne's World".
Bombs cannot hold terrain.
Constantly bombing the same place to avoid that the enemy retakes it is not a viable proposition.
Imagine a group of starving apes.
....
Divide them in two groups.
You either give two portions of food to each member of each group or you give three portions of food to each member of one group and four to each member of the other group.
In the first case you end up with a bunch of slightly hungry apes.
In the second case you end up with a group of not-hungry apes and a group of well fed apes. Naturally the well fed ones will beat the crap out of the other ones next time food is distributed and keep all of it, plus they will be higher in the hierarchy, plus they will get all the female-apes while the other ones just get the crap beaten out of them if they even try to approach the females
What can an ape choose???
Really - what is their positive contribution to the system?
As far as i can see, the only positive side of freeloaders is:
- They spread the word - thus bringing more users to the system, even some that aren't freeloaders
- They might stop being freeloaders (for example: a person that starts with nothing to share but shares what he/she gets)
- It feels good to "just share"
Number 1 just adds speed to how fast new users find the system (those which are not freeloaders also "spread the word").For number 2, if a P2P system allows some sort of "punishment" against freeloaders while at the same time leting them know WHY they are being "punished" probably the number of freeloaders that are "converted" would actually increase.
For number 3, it feels even beter to share when you know that the persons that get stuff from you will share it further.
As i see it, less freeloaders means more bandwith for everybody else.
I disagree ...
For example: A fight to the death between Bill Gates and Tux is a much healthier thing to see than them having sex (exactly how they would do it is beyond my imagination).
Everybody! Please think about the little children!
Who came first - the egg or the chickey?
In this case it's the chicken, 'cause only now did it laid an egg.
- Computers are breakable
- Poking a big hole in a computer can break it
- Guns are affective tools for poking holes in computers
- Firewall software doesn't run in broken computers
- To stop a firewall quickly shoot the computer just about anywere
And remeber kids - If you shoot a brand computer don't peek inside or you might be breaking the DCMA