Um...France is extremely socialist and is run predominantly on nuclear power. I don't understand your association of liberals and anti-nuclear attitudes.
As for knee-jerk reactions, have you ever watched Fox News?
So in your idiotic opinion, consumers should give up modern amenities and government should stay out of the market so that businesses behaving as a cartel can make insane amounts of profit every year while providing less and less service. All the while technology advances, making the cost of providing said service cheaper to them, propping up their income even more.
As a modern, developed country, I think we should strive for more than just the bare essentials of life. You're an idiot for sticking up for big business.
Even if, as you so claim, choices *were* there, it's absolutely idiotic to expect consumers to "look for them" as you say. They neither have the time, energy, money, or motivation to expend on "searching for" protection. That's why they elect politicians to government offices. That's why government set up consumer-protection laws decades ago. The whole point is to prevent the consumer, who has absolutely no bargaining power, from big business.
Wow, your understanding of economics is so limited I can only laugh. You basically ignored all of his assertions of what makes a free market truly free, and why achieving such a state of "utopia" is essentially impossible in the real world. His example about individuals having to verify the validity of business claims about their product without government oversight? You completely ignored. The three minimum requirements for a free market? You completely ignored. Instead you went on a stupid and uneducated rant about the "evil" of the Federal Reserve. Ugh... it's people like you that make America fall behind the rest of the world.
You are utterly hopeless. Seriously. It's ridiculous how biased you are.
As it is, EVERYONE has to pay the subsidized monthly fees. Whether you buy a subsidized phone or not, everyone pays THE SAME PRICES as everyone else. Having much cheaper monthly prices is one of the huge advantages of buying an unsubsidized phone.
Your claims about an endless utopia of competition are also idiotic. Verizon and AT&T control the special access lines that wireless providers need to set up towers and provide bandwidth to those towers. It's well known across the industry V and A have been charging HUGE markups on those special access lines, essentially forcing everyone to price their services at the same excessively high prices as them. All the while they can claim there is "competition", when no one can afford to lower their prices and V and A make huge profits on their wholesale service.
Wow, you're really ticking me off.
Maybe not everyone wants to buy a monthly texting plan. Maybe people prefer to pay for them as they use them. I don't need your worthless advice on what I should or shouldn't do with my SMS habits.
The differences you cite in how the carriers handle their plans are ultimately miniscule and nearly invisible to the end user. Ultimately their prices remain exactly the same. Furthermore, any rational social economist will tell you how complex plans confuse consumers into making irrational choices that harm themselves. Simple plans that clearly specify pricing differences are the only real form of competition that consumers can easily take advantage of without being screwed over.
Your claims that we have the lowest price per minute are completely unjustified. Your comparisons to previous decades are ridiculously idiotic. OF COURSE prices are cheaper than they were several years ago. Technology advances, and router and data technology advance according to Moore's law.
If you can't see how competition has been stifled in the US, you're either a blind zealot, a shill, or an investor. Either way I'd prefer if you would just shutup and stay on your own side of the lawn.
That's actually a very important point that no one ever seems to talk about. As bad as MS is, if Apple had become the dominant OS and computer manufacturer they would have stifled innovation and set us back a decade.
Hey, cousins marry all the time in the rest of the world. Studies have demonstrated no genetic "inbreeding" issues arise from first cousins having children.
I know I shouldn't feed the troll, but...
If Asians took your point of view, they would consider Aryan "princesses" to be promiscuous beasts who perpetually cheat on their partners and sacrifice their families' and children's well-being for their personal gain.
This will only be useful if they do something about those horrible 5 gig caps. HIgher speeds entices people to do more bandwidth intensive activities on their iPhones.
It would also be nice if the FCC punished AT&T and Verizon for charging HUGE markups on their special access lines, raising the price of wireless services for everyone in the US.
If it's really a "formal education" that beats down people's inquisitiveness, then why is it that since the beginning of the history of homo sapiens we have been a deeply religious/theistic species?
Seriously, take off the tinfoil hats, sit down, and read some social psychology. You'll learn a lot about humans that you never realized before. And don't just read the articles that satisfy your bias. Focus on the ones that actually disagree with what you believe. It's more interesting that way anyways.
You're a real nutjob aren't you. What do you have against banning anti-competitive exclusive handset agreements?
For one thing you can't get an unsubsidized monthly price if you buy an unsubsidized phone.
As for "problems", amenities are exactly what makes life more enjoyable for people who have no choice but to suffer through those problems.
And from an economic standpoint, billions of dollars are wasted on AT&T's and Verizon's coffers as they charge HUGE, HUGE markups on their special access lines that other carriers need to use, as well as the billions that are wasted on "subsidized contracts".
Fixing this money drain would be so easy. Just one little rule banning exclusive handset agreements and voila, lower prices and better phones for everyone.
Obviously you posted Anonymously to avoid your ID being associated with utter stupidity.
A "free market" entails a specific set of attributes that definitely do NOT describe the current cell phone market. For example, low barrier to entry, near-perfect consumer information.
A "free market" does not mean one is "free" to choose whether to be gouged or to do without a modern amenity. It means anyone is free to enter the market and provide their own products, and consumers are free to choose among multiple alternatives to find what they consider is the best choice.
Um...it helped that Honda and Toyota had extremely profitable operations in Japan to subsidize any early losses they incurred by stepping into the American market.
The vast majority of new upstarts don't have giant piles of cash reserves and nominal income.
Even if you buy an unsubsidized phone you still have to pay the "subsidized" monthly fees, essentially negating one of the main benefits of paying up-front. It's like buying a car up-front for full value but then still having to pay for the lease.
To quote a previous slashdotter:
I've never been comfortable with this imputation of moral burden entirely to the buyer. Corporations are complex and no one, least of all your average buyer, has a clue as to all of the financial and commercial entanglements that ultimately deliver a buy-able product.
Also, trying to choose amongst companies is similarly non-trivial, and as their size increases I suspect the more similar they become, if for no other reason than simple stochastics. Or do you really think that large corporations can be pidgeon-holed into "good" and "bad" categories?
That has to do with the nature of politics. Becoming a successful politician requires the ability to appease multiple groups with different ideologies, as well as convince the unwashed masses that you're "a good guy". All of this requires a lack of scruples and a general lack of empathy for those who suffer because of your ambitions. So once a politician finally does get into power, they have no real connection to average people anymore.
I know I'll be modded down for this, but if government was stocked more with intelligent engineers and scientists instead of lawyers we would never have these issues.
Slashdot Mirror
Um...France is extremely socialist and is run predominantly on nuclear power. I don't understand your association of liberals and anti-nuclear attitudes. As for knee-jerk reactions, have you ever watched Fox News?
So in your idiotic opinion, consumers should give up modern amenities and government should stay out of the market so that businesses behaving as a cartel can make insane amounts of profit every year while providing less and less service. All the while technology advances, making the cost of providing said service cheaper to them, propping up their income even more. As a modern, developed country, I think we should strive for more than just the bare essentials of life. You're an idiot for sticking up for big business.
Even if, as you so claim, choices *were* there, it's absolutely idiotic to expect consumers to "look for them" as you say. They neither have the time, energy, money, or motivation to expend on "searching for" protection. That's why they elect politicians to government offices. That's why government set up consumer-protection laws decades ago. The whole point is to prevent the consumer, who has absolutely no bargaining power, from big business.
Wow, your understanding of economics is so limited I can only laugh. You basically ignored all of his assertions of what makes a free market truly free, and why achieving such a state of "utopia" is essentially impossible in the real world. His example about individuals having to verify the validity of business claims about their product without government oversight? You completely ignored. The three minimum requirements for a free market? You completely ignored. Instead you went on a stupid and uneducated rant about the "evil" of the Federal Reserve. Ugh... it's people like you that make America fall behind the rest of the world.
You are utterly hopeless. Seriously. It's ridiculous how biased you are. As it is, EVERYONE has to pay the subsidized monthly fees. Whether you buy a subsidized phone or not, everyone pays THE SAME PRICES as everyone else. Having much cheaper monthly prices is one of the huge advantages of buying an unsubsidized phone. Your claims about an endless utopia of competition are also idiotic. Verizon and AT&T control the special access lines that wireless providers need to set up towers and provide bandwidth to those towers. It's well known across the industry V and A have been charging HUGE markups on those special access lines, essentially forcing everyone to price their services at the same excessively high prices as them. All the while they can claim there is "competition", when no one can afford to lower their prices and V and A make huge profits on their wholesale service.
Wow, you're really ticking me off. Maybe not everyone wants to buy a monthly texting plan. Maybe people prefer to pay for them as they use them. I don't need your worthless advice on what I should or shouldn't do with my SMS habits. The differences you cite in how the carriers handle their plans are ultimately miniscule and nearly invisible to the end user. Ultimately their prices remain exactly the same. Furthermore, any rational social economist will tell you how complex plans confuse consumers into making irrational choices that harm themselves. Simple plans that clearly specify pricing differences are the only real form of competition that consumers can easily take advantage of without being screwed over. Your claims that we have the lowest price per minute are completely unjustified. Your comparisons to previous decades are ridiculously idiotic. OF COURSE prices are cheaper than they were several years ago. Technology advances, and router and data technology advance according to Moore's law. If you can't see how competition has been stifled in the US, you're either a blind zealot, a shill, or an investor. Either way I'd prefer if you would just shutup and stay on your own side of the lawn.
That's actually a very important point that no one ever seems to talk about. As bad as MS is, if Apple had become the dominant OS and computer manufacturer they would have stifled innovation and set us back a decade.
Microsoft a monopoly? No, no way....
What do you mean "has gone by the wayside"? Could you specify what in the world you're talking about?
Hey, cousins marry all the time in the rest of the world. Studies have demonstrated no genetic "inbreeding" issues arise from first cousins having children.
I know I shouldn't feed the troll, but... If Asians took your point of view, they would consider Aryan "princesses" to be promiscuous beasts who perpetually cheat on their partners and sacrifice their families' and children's well-being for their personal gain.
This will only be useful if they do something about those horrible 5 gig caps. HIgher speeds entices people to do more bandwidth intensive activities on their iPhones. It would also be nice if the FCC punished AT&T and Verizon for charging HUGE markups on their special access lines, raising the price of wireless services for everyone in the US.
If it's really a "formal education" that beats down people's inquisitiveness, then why is it that since the beginning of the history of homo sapiens we have been a deeply religious/theistic species? Seriously, take off the tinfoil hats, sit down, and read some social psychology. You'll learn a lot about humans that you never realized before. And don't just read the articles that satisfy your bias. Focus on the ones that actually disagree with what you believe. It's more interesting that way anyways.
I think it's telling that most of the comments in the summary come from amateur astronomers.
You're a real nutjob aren't you. What do you have against banning anti-competitive exclusive handset agreements? For one thing you can't get an unsubsidized monthly price if you buy an unsubsidized phone. As for "problems", amenities are exactly what makes life more enjoyable for people who have no choice but to suffer through those problems. And from an economic standpoint, billions of dollars are wasted on AT&T's and Verizon's coffers as they charge HUGE, HUGE markups on their special access lines that other carriers need to use, as well as the billions that are wasted on "subsidized contracts". Fixing this money drain would be so easy. Just one little rule banning exclusive handset agreements and voila, lower prices and better phones for everyone.
Obviously you posted Anonymously to avoid your ID being associated with utter stupidity. A "free market" entails a specific set of attributes that definitely do NOT describe the current cell phone market. For example, low barrier to entry, near-perfect consumer information. A "free market" does not mean one is "free" to choose whether to be gouged or to do without a modern amenity. It means anyone is free to enter the market and provide their own products, and consumers are free to choose among multiple alternatives to find what they consider is the best choice.
Um...it helped that Honda and Toyota had extremely profitable operations in Japan to subsidize any early losses they incurred by stepping into the American market. The vast majority of new upstarts don't have giant piles of cash reserves and nominal income.
The technology in cheap phones has advanced leaps and bounds in other countries. You would NOT pay $400 for decade old tech.
They fired iPods and iPhones? But, where will the poor little devices go to find jobs??? Oh the horror!
Even if you buy an unsubsidized phone you still have to pay the "subsidized" monthly fees, essentially negating one of the main benefits of paying up-front. It's like buying a car up-front for full value but then still having to pay for the lease.
To quote a previous slashdotter: I've never been comfortable with this imputation of moral burden entirely to the buyer. Corporations are complex and no one, least of all your average buyer, has a clue as to all of the financial and commercial entanglements that ultimately deliver a buy-able product. Also, trying to choose amongst companies is similarly non-trivial, and as their size increases I suspect the more similar they become, if for no other reason than simple stochastics. Or do you really think that large corporations can be pidgeon-holed into "good" and "bad" categories?
That has to do with the nature of politics. Becoming a successful politician requires the ability to appease multiple groups with different ideologies, as well as convince the unwashed masses that you're "a good guy". All of this requires a lack of scruples and a general lack of empathy for those who suffer because of your ambitions. So once a politician finally does get into power, they have no real connection to average people anymore.
I know I'll be modded down for this, but if government was stocked more with intelligent engineers and scientists instead of lawyers we would never have these issues.
Heh, I wish I could mod you up.
Are we sure Russia is no longer communist?