Right - you're back to "all". Understand - I have no disagreement with you over office workers. I'm simply trying to point out you *shouldn't* refer to home users and office workers in the same breath as "computer users". The needs of the two are completely, entirely different. Office workers could generally be given a stripped down OS with 1 or 2 applications that they need and their work lives would be complete.
But that's no argument for home users (which OP was referring to) to be abandoning Windows. There's no comparison between the two. OP was talking about his grandpa at home, and your response was that "because x% of all computer users could get by without Windows, almost nobody should be using it", includes office workers. Without them, your statistic of how many people could get by without Windows drops significantly.
I concur that a significant percentage of home users would be able to get by on a "tablet OS" on their PC, however for the home PC market (again, what OP was referring to, and what you started arguing against by dragging in statistics which don't relate to the home market), a tablet-OS would not be suitable for anywhere near "75-85%".
Car analogy time: The majority of pedestrians in Beijing utilize bicycles as their primary form of transport. 2 wheels. However, a large percentage of the population drive cars (or utilise busses) which have 4 or more wheels. If Joe buys a car with 4 wheels, you're suggesting that "you don't need a car with 4 wheels.. you only need 3 at the most! 75-85% of the population only need 2 wheels!". The fact they do is irrelevant to the fact that his car needs 4 wheels, and the fact that the majority of the population use 2 only skews the population-to-wheels statistic. It's completely irrelevant when considering how many wheels Joe's car should have.
The point is - when we're talking about home users, it's completely irrelevant to bring in any statistic which involves office workers and what their needs are. Home users needs are vastly different. While some have limited, or even the same needs, most have greater versatility needs than office workers do, thus their statistic is just a distraction to a conversation about home users. Tell me what percentage of HOME USERS (again, which OP was talking about and which you started arguing against) could get by with a tablet OS? Although, I'm not likely to get a sensible answer, as follows...
. No doubt, even some power users might only have a list of a half dozen applications used. If the list is shorter, say 2 or 3 applications, then the user doesn't need a Windows license, or even a full desktop computer.
I think there's not really much point in every trying to argue with you when you make statements like this. The needs to the application determine what a user requires, not the number of applications one uses, especially when you bring games into the equation. We're nowhere near cloud-processing Crysis 2 yet.
Okay, but extend that "need" into "want", and suddenly you'll find most PC gamers can't manage at all with a simplistic Chrome-like OS. If you exclude "business" users from your percentage, you'll find your target audience for a simple idiot-proof OS on home PCs dwindles significantly. Sure, they're still out there. And I wholly support giving grandma Ubuntu (or even something simplier), Firefox and Thunderbird, and letting her have at it! She doesn't need to do anything else, so anything else is just bloat. But it's not 75-80% of the home user market that applies to. I doubt it's even 50%. This is why Windows is still going strong (well, that, and the fact that it comes pre-installed on most PCs).
Most folks I know don't buy pre-made PCs, but get friends to price up and build them for them. They're "more power" machines, not "email and messenger" machines. Sure, there's still a market for K.I.S.S, but as each successive generation gets more tech-clued, folks want more options, not less. As the tablet-OS-on-desktops is beginning to take off, we may see this plateau and diverge into two markets - but I don't think you'll find the simple OS market anywhere near as high as 80% for home users - at least not for their primary PC. "Entertainment centers", sure.
So in the camp of folks who do want a more powerful, diverse OS, why WIndows instead of Linux? Linux isn't ready yet. It's at an ideal point as a Simple OS - see Grandma example above. But it's by no means ready as a replacement for Windows for the folks who want to use the additional functionality, but don't want to have to learn how to tinker with the OS. Thesedays, one should never have to see a command prompt to do ANYTHING, in normal usage. Retaining a command prompt for common usage is holding back the Linux desktop from widespread adoptance. There are too many common, complex functions in Linux, which are simple in Windows.
Agreed - there's far too much to Windows. But disagree that that fact has virtually any impact on the user. There's no aspect of the interface or interactions I have with the Windows OS that are any faster in Linux. When I finish this text and hit Preview, it won't happen faster in Linux. When I then close the browser and switch across to my Steam window, it wouldn't happen any faster in Linux. There's no distinguishable speed differential on modern-day 64-bit, 8-core PCs.
That's a bit harsh. They don't have our degree of expertise, but everyones knowledge is generally specialised. "The IT Guys" are just jaded, because they've chosen a profession where they have to deal with that lack of knowledge in their specific area, on a daily basis. It's why I got out of tech support after a couple of years - I didn't like dealing with that. Meanwhile, those "IT guys" have a very limited field of expertise, and are usually unskilled at just about everything NOT computer-related. This doesn't make everybody idiots, it just states the obvious fact that everyone's knowledge is specialised. Ignore the jaded jerks. If their joy comes from irrationally insulting strangers, they're twats.
I already know that. Research is not necessary. Thanks for your contribution.
Re:This is cool ... rush to judgment?
on
Windows 8 Roundup
·
· Score: 1
Right - but I don't want to reach up and touch my desktop monitor? I get that this is a great boon for tablets. No problem.:) It's just that in the developer preview, it's also forced onto desktop users. I've said several times- I'll gladly eat my words when the beta comes out if they've made more logical decisions for desktop users. But the keynote speeches indicating that desktop users should be interacting with their screen more, and that we'll have to "change the way we use Windows" suggest an unpleasant enforcement of said interface on desktop users.
It's not hard to get to the desktop. It's just hard to stay there. Any number of common operations take you back out to the Metro UI, and from there it's multiple clicks to get back where you were. The desktop is quite usable, just as long as you're not trying to mix common applicatons and Metro Apps. User-interfacing between the two is ridiculously clunky and awkward.
Basically they're trying to replace Win32 with Metro, which is fine if that's what basic users want. For advanced users, it's like a straight-jacket on productivity. Even Apple hasn't made this mistake, keeping their tablet and phone OS quite separate from their desktop OS.
At present, trying to use the mouse for touch features is difficult, and in many cases, impossible (ie, the functionality simply isn't present in some cases). I'm all for Windows 8 if we can choose which aspects of the interface we want to use on the desktop version. But if we're forced to have this full-screen Metro UI take over our *desktop* every 2 minutes, you can forget it. Would be giving it a pass. Hope to see better things in beta.
Err.. who launches Internet Explorer from an explorer window? You don't navigate to C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer and launch it. At the very least, you launch it from your Start menu except - oh, didn't you know - there's no Start menu in Win8. You click the Start button and you're taken to the full-screen MetroUI Start Screen.
Vux - I completely agree. It's more the point that it forces you to. If you hit F3 to search, you're taken to the Metro search interface. You're now forced to pick one of their search "targets" and to use their interface. You can't even see your application as you're now in a full-screen Metro interface, so it's going to take at least three clicks to get back to your program (one in the lower left corner to bring up the Start screen, then one on Desktop to open the desktop "gadget", then one on your application).
If, heaven forbid, you use Internet Explorer (which sadly, many users still do as the default browser on their PCs), it's also now a full-screen metro "app". If in the above example, you followed search to a Wikipedia link, you're now in a full-screen IE session with your original application several clicks away (and several clicks to get back to your IE to make sure you read something correctly, etc).
I understand it's for tablets. That's great. But forcing it on desktop users as at present is asinine. I hope to be shown in beta that we have the option to not use Metro at all. That hasn't been mentioned yet. What we've been told is that we're going to have to "change the way you do a lot of things" and that we need to "interact with the screen" more. That suggests they are going to force this Metro crapware on top of everything.
Indeed. Tried Win8 out yesterday. Extremely disappointed with the forced nature of the Metro UI and how it takes over.. everything. Must admit I'm a fan of the ribbon changes to Explorer, et al. It's just a shame it's all hidden behind this horrible Metro UI that I never want to see. It's a shame that it's so difficult to switch apps if you want to "search" or actually use Explorer.
"What's that? You want to look up something on Wikipedia in Internet Explorer, then go back to Word? No less than 4 mouse clicks and three full screen changes to get back there from here". - Metro UI
It's a damned shame too, because I felt like they just about got everything right with Windows 7. Give me Windows 7 + ribbon interface and I'm happy as Larry. But force me to use a crap interface that I don't want to interact with and I'm gone as a user. Maybe Ubuntu next.. Maybe even.. *shudder*.. a Mac.
Words fail to describe how truly and completely awful the interface, task switching and metro UI are for normal Desktop PC usage.
If I hit Search, I want my regular search box, one click away from the app I was already using. I do *NOT* want to then after searching, have to click START to return to the metro UI, then DESKTOP to bring up the Windows desktop, then click my program to get back to where I was. Nor do I want to hit the Application Scroller button and rotate through to the correct application. Might be great on a tablet PC where you can just "hold a finger down" and bring up a task list (no idea if you can, just presuming they'll follow something Mac-like in that regard). But on a desktop, this is truly hideous.
If the interactions I've experienced in testing so far even remotely resemble the end-product, I'll be giving Windows 8 a miss. In that case, if Windows 9 is similar too, I'll finally be forced to kick the Windows habit I've had for 15-odd years.
No, the law doesn't propose universal fee shifting. And no, that's not what I want.
At the moment courts *can* award for meritless cases, but also don't have to. Frequently cases are simply dismissed without any fee shifting, and two sets of lawyers go home happy. The law being proposed makes fee shifting mandatory in frivilous cases. It doesn't apply to cases which aren't frivilous, so there's no balanced equation which means no cases can be brought, as you're suggesting. It simply means that there'll be a disincentive to bring a case you know you can't win.
That's right. It's a little ridiculous. They're trying to introduce a law at the moment, so those who bring frivilous lawsuits (ie, those with no merit that they know they're going to lose) have to pay the fees for the other side. The legal establishment is fighting extremely hard to stop this, and being quite powerful they probably will succeed.
Frivilous lawsuits are their bread and butter. They convince some ignorant sap that they'll win a court case which they (the lawyers) know they'll most likely lose, go to court, lose, and then bill their ignorant sap. If said ignorant sap knew he'd have to pay the opposing side's legal fees if he lost, he'd be far less likely to take the case to court. At the moment, there's no disincentive, as his lawyers can say "the most it'll cost you is x (our charge) and if you win, you stand to gain.. ONE MILLION DOLLARS".
IMO, damn straight folks should have to pay up for clogging the legal system with lawsuits that have no merit. Sure, if someone loses a lawsuit that is "fair" - ie, those that do have at least some merit - then no, don't charge the legal fees from the opposite side. But frivilous lawsuits that if taken to court are unwinnable and were only raised to try and get a settlement, sure - charge them the opposing legal fees. Fine them as well. Damn vultures.
Why should an innocent party on the receiving end of a frivilous lawsuits have to pay ANYTHING to defend himself? Those bringing the case against him purely in the hope of getting a settlement because it'd be "cheaper than paying lawyers fees" are the scum who should be paying up. In fact, it would pretty much stop that kind of case - which is why your lawyers and all their lawyer friends will be trying their darndest to convince you this law is a bad idea.
Under the "Free Trade Agreement" with the US, we're not permitted to import goods *for sale* which are going to be resold cheaper than prices set by US exporters *if* the goods are already sold here. It's designed to stop anyone doing specifically what you're talking about. It's a strong-arm tactic, because we have to accept it or else import restrictions are placed on our goods. It comes down to "does Australia want to do business with the US? If so, then Australia has to accept the US's terms for all commerce in both directions, or the US will just make sure Australia regrets it." There are indeed "laws and regulations" that allow other countries, or rather - specifically the US - to charge ridiculous prices. These were imposed by the US. Unless the US economy starts getting considerably worse than it already is, we're in no position to argue "terms" - the best we can do is ask corporations to be reasonable.. which is kinda what this article is about.
Of course I realise, it's not in the corporation's interest to be "reasonable" until the volume of sales it costs them is greater than the profit made from the inflated prices. I believe it's already well past that mark in certain industries, but clearly they don't. In an EA games example I give later on, the company charges 3-6x the price for digitally-delivered games on its NZ version of the Origin store, to what it does on the US version (taking currency discrepancy into account). To me, it seems like a no brainer that very few are going to pay $90 for a $15 game. However EA must see that the profit from gouging individual buyers like that is worth more than they'd make from selling games at parity in greater volume.
Digital online goods are generally priced at 200-400% the US domestic cost. It's got nothing to do with shipping. it's simply price gouging a smaller market, because the smaller market has no alternative.
It's expensive to import individual items. As an importer myself, I klow it's not expensive to import in bulk. Adds about 10 cents per item (small goods), whereas manufacturers mark up prices x2. It's purely a profit gouge, because manufacturers know smaller countries simply CANNOT manufacture the same range of goods themselves.
Besides, the US can't produce iPhones competitively themselves anyway. The US imports them. The difference is they then sell them twice as much to some countries as to others. If you had to "make your own shit domestically", it would cost you far more than it currently does, so that's not a reason by any stretch of the imagination. It's a fairly common weak pissant excuse made by you folks, though.
Slashdot Mirror
Right - you're back to "all". Understand - I have no disagreement with you over office workers. I'm simply trying to point out you *shouldn't* refer to home users and office workers in the same breath as "computer users". The needs of the two are completely, entirely different. Office workers could generally be given a stripped down OS with 1 or 2 applications that they need and their work lives would be complete.
But that's no argument for home users (which OP was referring to) to be abandoning Windows. There's no comparison between the two. OP was talking about his grandpa at home, and your response was that "because x% of all computer users could get by without Windows, almost nobody should be using it", includes office workers. Without them, your statistic of how many people could get by without Windows drops significantly.
I concur that a significant percentage of home users would be able to get by on a "tablet OS" on their PC, however for the home PC market (again, what OP was referring to, and what you started arguing against by dragging in statistics which don't relate to the home market), a tablet-OS would not be suitable for anywhere near "75-85%".
Car analogy time: The majority of pedestrians in Beijing utilize bicycles as their primary form of transport. 2 wheels. However, a large percentage of the population drive cars (or utilise busses) which have 4 or more wheels. If Joe buys a car with 4 wheels, you're suggesting that "you don't need a car with 4 wheels.. you only need 3 at the most! 75-85% of the population only need 2 wheels!". The fact they do is irrelevant to the fact that his car needs 4 wheels, and the fact that the majority of the population use 2 only skews the population-to-wheels statistic. It's completely irrelevant when considering how many wheels Joe's car should have.
The point is - when we're talking about home users, it's completely irrelevant to bring in any statistic which involves office workers and what their needs are. Home users needs are vastly different. While some have limited, or even the same needs, most have greater versatility needs than office workers do, thus their statistic is just a distraction to a conversation about home users. Tell me what percentage of HOME USERS (again, which OP was talking about and which you started arguing against) could get by with a tablet OS? Although, I'm not likely to get a sensible answer, as follows...
. No doubt, even some power users might only have a list of a half dozen applications used. If the list is shorter, say 2 or 3 applications, then the user doesn't need a Windows license, or even a full desktop computer.
I think there's not really much point in every trying to argue with you when you make statements like this. The needs to the application determine what a user requires, not the number of applications one uses, especially when you bring games into the equation. We're nowhere near cloud-processing Crysis 2 yet.
Okay, but extend that "need" into "want", and suddenly you'll find most PC gamers can't manage at all with a simplistic Chrome-like OS. If you exclude "business" users from your percentage, you'll find your target audience for a simple idiot-proof OS on home PCs dwindles significantly. Sure, they're still out there. And I wholly support giving grandma Ubuntu (or even something simplier), Firefox and Thunderbird, and letting her have at it! She doesn't need to do anything else, so anything else is just bloat. But it's not 75-80% of the home user market that applies to. I doubt it's even 50%. This is why Windows is still going strong (well, that, and the fact that it comes pre-installed on most PCs).
Most folks I know don't buy pre-made PCs, but get friends to price up and build them for them. They're "more power" machines, not "email and messenger" machines. Sure, there's still a market for K.I.S.S, but as each successive generation gets more tech-clued, folks want more options, not less. As the tablet-OS-on-desktops is beginning to take off, we may see this plateau and diverge into two markets - but I don't think you'll find the simple OS market anywhere near as high as 80% for home users - at least not for their primary PC. "Entertainment centers", sure.
So in the camp of folks who do want a more powerful, diverse OS, why WIndows instead of Linux? Linux isn't ready yet. It's at an ideal point as a Simple OS - see Grandma example above. But it's by no means ready as a replacement for Windows for the folks who want to use the additional functionality, but don't want to have to learn how to tinker with the OS. Thesedays, one should never have to see a command prompt to do ANYTHING, in normal usage. Retaining a command prompt for common usage is holding back the Linux desktop from widespread adoptance. There are too many common, complex functions in Linux, which are simple in Windows.
Agreed - there's far too much to Windows. But disagree that that fact has virtually any impact on the user. There's no aspect of the interface or interactions I have with the Windows OS that are any faster in Linux. When I finish this text and hit Preview, it won't happen faster in Linux. When I then close the browser and switch across to my Steam window, it wouldn't happen any faster in Linux. There's no distinguishable speed differential on modern-day 64-bit, 8-core PCs.
That's a bit harsh. They don't have our degree of expertise, but everyones knowledge is generally specialised. "The IT Guys" are just jaded, because they've chosen a profession where they have to deal with that lack of knowledge in their specific area, on a daily basis. It's why I got out of tech support after a couple of years - I didn't like dealing with that. Meanwhile, those "IT guys" have a very limited field of expertise, and are usually unskilled at just about everything NOT computer-related. This doesn't make everybody idiots, it just states the obvious fact that everyone's knowledge is specialised. Ignore the jaded jerks. If their joy comes from irrationally insulting strangers, they're twats.
Neither of these locations prevents them from being nerds. I'd wager, most likely, they self-identify as such.
Has always seemed much more nerd accessible - like being a nerd is almost a pre-requisite to enjoying it. Star Wars is too.. main-stream action. >
I already know that. Research is not necessary. Thanks for your contribution.
Right - but I don't want to reach up and touch my desktop monitor? I get that this is a great boon for tablets. No problem. :) It's just that in the developer preview, it's also forced onto desktop users. I've said several times- I'll gladly eat my words when the beta comes out if they've made more logical decisions for desktop users. But the keynote speeches indicating that desktop users should be interacting with their screen more, and that we'll have to "change the way we use Windows" suggest an unpleasant enforcement of said interface on desktop users.
Click and drag it so it gets focus?
I... speechless.
Definitely. I'm looking forward to beta so I can eat my words. :)
It's not hard to get to the desktop. It's just hard to stay there. Any number of common operations take you back out to the Metro UI, and from there it's multiple clicks to get back where you were. The desktop is quite usable, just as long as you're not trying to mix common applicatons and Metro Apps. User-interfacing between the two is ridiculously clunky and awkward.
Basically they're trying to replace Win32 with Metro, which is fine if that's what basic users want. For advanced users, it's like a straight-jacket on productivity. Even Apple hasn't made this mistake, keeping their tablet and phone OS quite separate from their desktop OS.
At present, trying to use the mouse for touch features is difficult, and in many cases, impossible (ie, the functionality simply isn't present in some cases). I'm all for Windows 8 if we can choose which aspects of the interface we want to use on the desktop version. But if we're forced to have this full-screen Metro UI take over our *desktop* every 2 minutes, you can forget it. Would be giving it a pass. Hope to see better things in beta.
Err.. who launches Internet Explorer from an explorer window? You don't navigate to C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer and launch it. At the very least, you launch it from your Start menu except - oh, didn't you know - there's no Start menu in Win8. You click the Start button and you're taken to the full-screen MetroUI Start Screen.
Vux - I completely agree. It's more the point that it forces you to. If you hit F3 to search, you're taken to the Metro search interface. You're now forced to pick one of their search "targets" and to use their interface. You can't even see your application as you're now in a full-screen Metro interface, so it's going to take at least three clicks to get back to your program (one in the lower left corner to bring up the Start screen, then one on Desktop to open the desktop "gadget", then one on your application).
If, heaven forbid, you use Internet Explorer (which sadly, many users still do as the default browser on their PCs), it's also now a full-screen metro "app". If in the above example, you followed search to a Wikipedia link, you're now in a full-screen IE session with your original application several clicks away (and several clicks to get back to your IE to make sure you read something correctly, etc).
I understand it's for tablets. That's great. But forcing it on desktop users as at present is asinine. I hope to be shown in beta that we have the option to not use Metro at all. That hasn't been mentioned yet. What we've been told is that we're going to have to "change the way you do a lot of things" and that we need to "interact with the screen" more. That suggests they are going to force this Metro crapware on top of everything.
Indeed. Tried Win8 out yesterday. Extremely disappointed with the forced nature of the Metro UI and how it takes over .. everything. Must admit I'm a fan of the ribbon changes to Explorer, et al. It's just a shame it's all hidden behind this horrible Metro UI that I never want to see. It's a shame that it's so difficult to switch apps if you want to "search" or actually use Explorer.
"What's that? You want to look up something on Wikipedia in Internet Explorer, then go back to Word? No less than 4 mouse clicks and three full screen changes to get back there from here". - Metro UI
It's a damned shame too, because I felt like they just about got everything right with Windows 7. Give me Windows 7 + ribbon interface and I'm happy as Larry. But force me to use a crap interface that I don't want to interact with and I'm gone as a user. Maybe Ubuntu next.. Maybe even.. *shudder*.. a Mac.
Words fail to describe how truly and completely awful the interface, task switching and metro UI are for normal Desktop PC usage.
If I hit Search, I want my regular search box, one click away from the app I was already using. I do *NOT* want to then after searching, have to click START to return to the metro UI, then DESKTOP to bring up the Windows desktop, then click my program to get back to where I was. Nor do I want to hit the Application Scroller button and rotate through to the correct application. Might be great on a tablet PC where you can just "hold a finger down" and bring up a task list (no idea if you can, just presuming they'll follow something Mac-like in that regard). But on a desktop, this is truly hideous.
If the interactions I've experienced in testing so far even remotely resemble the end-product, I'll be giving Windows 8 a miss. In that case, if Windows 9 is similar too, I'll finally be forced to kick the Windows habit I've had for 15-odd years.
Can anyone inform what the time period on this is? 128 days?
No, the law doesn't propose universal fee shifting. And no, that's not what I want.
At the moment courts *can* award for meritless cases, but also don't have to. Frequently cases are simply dismissed without any fee shifting, and two sets of lawyers go home happy. The law being proposed makes fee shifting mandatory in frivilous cases. It doesn't apply to cases which aren't frivilous, so there's no balanced equation which means no cases can be brought, as you're suggesting. It simply means that there'll be a disincentive to bring a case you know you can't win.
That's right. It's a little ridiculous. They're trying to introduce a law at the moment, so those who bring frivilous lawsuits (ie, those with no merit that they know they're going to lose) have to pay the fees for the other side. The legal establishment is fighting extremely hard to stop this, and being quite powerful they probably will succeed.
Frivilous lawsuits are their bread and butter. They convince some ignorant sap that they'll win a court case which they (the lawyers) know they'll most likely lose, go to court, lose, and then bill their ignorant sap. If said ignorant sap knew he'd have to pay the opposing side's legal fees if he lost, he'd be far less likely to take the case to court. At the moment, there's no disincentive, as his lawyers can say "the most it'll cost you is x (our charge) and if you win, you stand to gain .. ONE MILLION DOLLARS".
IMO, damn straight folks should have to pay up for clogging the legal system with lawsuits that have no merit. Sure, if someone loses a lawsuit that is "fair" - ie, those that do have at least some merit - then no, don't charge the legal fees from the opposite side. But frivilous lawsuits that if taken to court are unwinnable and were only raised to try and get a settlement, sure - charge them the opposing legal fees. Fine them as well. Damn vultures.
Why should an innocent party on the receiving end of a frivilous lawsuits have to pay ANYTHING to defend himself? Those bringing the case against him purely in the hope of getting a settlement because it'd be "cheaper than paying lawyers fees" are the scum who should be paying up. In fact, it would pretty much stop that kind of case - which is why your lawyers and all their lawyer friends will be trying their darndest to convince you this law is a bad idea.
The specific law that has just been introduced relates only to P2P traffic.
Likewise, I use YYYYMMDD for all files/folders/anything where I can enter a date, for precisely the sorting reason. :)
Where "some European" = "Almost every other country in the world." :)
Steve Jobs lost me as a supporter when he started following the Microsoft playbook.
That would be, around the time of the Apple ][.
Under the "Free Trade Agreement" with the US, we're not permitted to import goods *for sale* which are going to be resold cheaper than prices set by US exporters *if* the goods are already sold here. It's designed to stop anyone doing specifically what you're talking about. It's a strong-arm tactic, because we have to accept it or else import restrictions are placed on our goods. It comes down to "does Australia want to do business with the US? If so, then Australia has to accept the US's terms for all commerce in both directions, or the US will just make sure Australia regrets it." There are indeed "laws and regulations" that allow other countries, or rather - specifically the US - to charge ridiculous prices. These were imposed by the US. Unless the US economy starts getting considerably worse than it already is, we're in no position to argue "terms" - the best we can do is ask corporations to be reasonable.. which is kinda what this article is about.
Of course I realise, it's not in the corporation's interest to be "reasonable" until the volume of sales it costs them is greater than the profit made from the inflated prices. I believe it's already well past that mark in certain industries, but clearly they don't. In an EA games example I give later on, the company charges 3-6x the price for digitally-delivered games on its NZ version of the Origin store, to what it does on the US version (taking currency discrepancy into account). To me, it seems like a no brainer that very few are going to pay $90 for a $15 game. However EA must see that the profit from gouging individual buyers like that is worth more than they'd make from selling games at parity in greater volume.
Digital online goods are generally priced at 200-400% the US domestic cost. It's got nothing to do with shipping. it's simply price gouging a smaller market, because the smaller market has no alternative.
Direct from China, at least my iPhone was.
It's expensive to import individual items. As an importer myself, I klow it's not expensive to import in bulk. Adds about 10 cents per item (small goods), whereas manufacturers mark up prices x2. It's purely a profit gouge, because manufacturers know smaller countries simply CANNOT manufacture the same range of goods themselves.
Besides, the US can't produce iPhones competitively themselves anyway. The US imports them. The difference is they then sell them twice as much to some countries as to others. If you had to "make your own shit domestically", it would cost you far more than it currently does, so that's not a reason by any stretch of the imagination. It's a fairly common weak pissant excuse made by you folks, though.