Seriously! And what is with this "internet" thing!? That's not a net, which can be used to catch fish; it's some kind of system of interconnected computers! I can't fish with interconnected computers!
They know they law, they know when you are breaking it and with what you can be charged.
Yeah, but who is going to make the arrest?
That's mostly snarky but it's also a comment on the separation of powers. A judge can do a lot, but he can't physically enforce the law. But you are absolutely right: he can do a lot.
If you ask me "what should happen", it should be this: all the banks and credit unions and other consumer financial institutions get together and have a universal system for exchanging ATM fees which is free and transparent to end users. This would be similar to the universal system for cashing checks. That would cover well over 95% of ATMs, and the rest of the ATMs (owned by private businesses which aren't banks or whatever) could still charge a fee but would find it difficult to rip off consumers, because the fee-ATM would be surrounded by free-ATMs.
But I don't expect that to happen; it would be unacceptably pro-consumer. So, people like you and me will have to continue finding ways to avoid the fees.
I don't understand why you have such a severe reaction. Do you object to the word "failure"? Fine, do you prefer "shortcoming"? "Imperfection"? Whatever word you like is fine with me. The point is he wants a service and his bank doesn't offer it. Describe it in whatever way makes you happy.
Anyway, yeah, I'm sure asking a huge multinational to change their basic practices will work. Maybe you would be shocked if they declined his request, but I would be shocked if they even passed his request beyond the service department. If it helps you to be convinced, back when I was dumb enough to bank with Bank of America, I got fed up with the fees and actually did ask them to change their ways and stop charging fees. Are you shocked that they didn't do so?
I took my money elsewhere even though they were the same fees as the day I signed up. (Actually, they weren't, they changed, but that didn't affect how I felt about the situation.) This guy is doing the same, and I absolutely think you are flat out wrong: he's doing the right thing by voting with his dollars. I can't even imagine that you would honestly suggest he do otherwise. What, he should keep receiving service which doesn't meet his needs? why? because the service hasn't changed while his needs have?
Orly? Once a month I see "Debit Charge Rebate" or somesuch on my bank statement. It's for a few or several dollars, and I don't know what else it could be but a debit reimbursement. But, I never bothered to check, I just happily take the dollars.
What's the problem? This man wants a certain service from his bank, and his bank declines to provide that service. This is America, where the only recourse a person has is to take their damn money somewhere else. This guy is voting with his dollars, and he deserves accolades for taking action on a service failure.
As a side point, having nothing to do with what you said, the fact that customers do not usually take the action taken by this man, and instead behave the way you proffer that he should, is the reason free-market theory is wrong. Most customers, most of the time, will do the easy thing and stick with sub-par service, out of a sense of laziness -- or however you want to phrase it, because it's easier not to act. That is a fact, and it is a fact ignored by free market theories. It is for this reason that we use sparing legislation to help achieve pro-consumer markets: because the free market would not provide optimal services.
The notion of ATM fees angers me. Banks built and instituted these machines in order to save themselves money because now they don't have to pay a human to hand out cash. For us to pay, in order for them to save money, as asinine.
That is why I bank with USAA, which refunds all ATM fees for any ATM I use, no matter what. As a bonus, they also refund all debit card fees, which is gravy because the stores pay that fee, not me.
Stupid. Do you also try to claim one of the bricks in the Hoover Dam? one square inch of the National Mall? two annual trips on Air Force One?
Give me a fucking break. It's hard to believe a human being would actually type that out and post it on the internet. (Actually, I guess that's not hard to believe.)
I was referring to Netflix, where sometimes the movie you receive isn't the first one in your queue. Thanks for the info, though, that's informative.
Blockbuster could have out-competed Netflix because they could have offered identical mail service combined with their physical stores, resulting in a slightly superior experience. But, they didn't "get it", and now they're slipping into history.
All of us dropped Blockbuster long before Blockbuster dropped late fees. In fact yesterday when I first read about this story was the first time I'd heard that they'd dropped late fees, an action that smacks of desperation.
Blockbuster finally tepidly had their own through-the-mail system which, when combined with their physical stores, could have easily beat Netflix, if not for Blockbuster's incredible inability to see the handwriting on the wall.
Also, there are lots of other reasons to hate Blockbuster besides their general business model. I certainly preferred local movie shops, back when I would deign to use any of the above.
Totally agreed. "Why would anyone want a movie sent to you in the mail? You wouldn't even know what movie you are going to see next! Walking around aisles of thousands of bad movies for over an hour is clearly a superior customer experience, and we don't need to worry about this competition."
Maybe they will build their next brick-and-mortar store out of clue-by-fours.
"Dick move" -- totally agreed. That's a serious dick move, even more so considering the specific circumstances, such as that Bucky is a much larger company, and the question at hand is a matter of facts, not blind assertions. Very, very dick move. You can even hear it in his voice -- a total dick.
My citation for the free-speech claim is the Simon Singh case. This is hardly a controversial issue; Congress passed a protective law to specifically address the lack of free speech in Britain.
I totally agree with you that America also has a long way to go for universal participation in public life, even though we have come a long way already. But that's unrelated to anything I mentioned.
Why would anyone want to have, let alone use, something whose only purpose is to maim and kill, inflict suffering,misery and death?
I'm not clear on the question. Do you mean, "in order to stop someone with a similar weapon from inflicting death upon me"? Because that's what I'm talking about.
Very few people would seriously consider using a gun against a fellow human
Really? You think? I imagine almost everyone would "consider" using a gun against a person who was trying to use a gun or knife or whatever weapon against them. You wouldn't even "consider" acting in self defense? Are you serious or do I misunderstand you?
As quoted elsewhere, this appears to be a case where by the person involved needs to acquaint themselves with the appropriate procedure.
For the sake of the British public, I certainly hope this is true. Nevertheless, it leaves me wondering what the "procedure" is if it's not "call the police and have them recover the stolen goods". What else could the procedure possibly be?
To be fair, a lot of us on Slashdot are Americans and have American-style expectations of rights. Britain is not a free country, so we shouldn't try to make presumptions on British law based on American law. Apparently, in addition to not having the right to free speech (saying true things even when it damages the reputation of a corporation), and not having the right to self defense (peacefully carrying a weapon, or using a weapon when another person tries to harm you), British subjects also do not have property rights (the right to recapture goods stolen from you) or civil redress of grievances (the right to sue a person who is holding your stolen property for return of that property).
Hey, that's not a legal system that I would want to live under, but even if Britain is not a free country, it *IS* a functioning democracy (sort of), so it is the British subjects who choose this legal system for themselves, and I don't think we Americans should go too far in criticizing it.
In the interest of peer-reviewed science, I was inspired to test my coworker's Bucky Balls using the Rigid Stick Test. When we made the rigid stick, it was much straighter than the one shown in the video. Then, when we pushed it over a ledge, it stood up to 27 balls. The video showed 24 for Bucky Balls and 25 for Zen Magnets, so I would say that the test would need repetition and graphing, like they did for the ball diameters.
Still, I loved the video and I thought it was wonderful tongue-in-cheek advertising. It makes me want some Zen Magnets.
Damn, last month I bought Bucky Balls on Woot. Not only are they still, apparently, in the mail, but now I'm coveting some Zen Magnets. Great advertising, Zen! You might make yourself a sale, if these damn Bucky Balls never show up.
Totally agreed. I used a rhetorical shortcut, and I hope you can believe that I've long since discarded uni-dimensional thinking, which I agree is a problematic, yet all-too-common, way of thinking.
Sometimes the shortcut is more reasonable than other times, and in this instance I think it is fairly reasonable. How many ways can you think about copyright? It's pretty much a question of how much protection you think a work should get, with some details of what kind of protections. The OP chose one extreme on that unidimensional scale, so it was easy to respond to that as I did.
I agree with that, but you don't see most of those fools running around advertising it on Slashdot.
Side story: that happened with my wife, in the first month of when I knew her. I told her about a song which she liked and bought on the iTunes store. Immediately confronted with the DRM, she called me and asked how to convert the song to a format she could use. After way too long of actually trying to do that, I realized how stupid I was being, and just emailed her the MP3. We talked about how that was a perfect example of how DRM only hurts paying customers, and thus why she should never buy anything with DRM. We've been together for five years and in that time neither of us have ever bought a DVD or anything from iTunes.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, thanks, that is +1 Informative.
Seriously! And what is with this "internet" thing!? That's not a net, which can be used to catch fish; it's some kind of system of interconnected computers! I can't fish with interconnected computers!
They know they law, they know when you are breaking it and with what you can be charged.
Yeah, but who is going to make the arrest?
That's mostly snarky but it's also a comment on the separation of powers. A judge can do a lot, but he can't physically enforce the law. But you are absolutely right: he can do a lot.
PS I looked at another checking account and there is a "DEBIT CARD REBATE" for two dollars and four cents.
Conclude whatever you think is right. I don't know what it is, but I'm happy for the two dollars.
Another good example: "Orbitz" is both gum and a website.
But you chose the right example for Slashdot.
Yes, I'm in the same situation as you.
If you ask me "what should happen", it should be this: all the banks and credit unions and other consumer financial institutions get together and have a universal system for exchanging ATM fees which is free and transparent to end users. This would be similar to the universal system for cashing checks. That would cover well over 95% of ATMs, and the rest of the ATMs (owned by private businesses which aren't banks or whatever) could still charge a fee but would find it difficult to rip off consumers, because the fee-ATM would be surrounded by free-ATMs.
But I don't expect that to happen; it would be unacceptably pro-consumer. So, people like you and me will have to continue finding ways to avoid the fees.
I don't understand why you have such a severe reaction. Do you object to the word "failure"? Fine, do you prefer "shortcoming"? "Imperfection"? Whatever word you like is fine with me. The point is he wants a service and his bank doesn't offer it. Describe it in whatever way makes you happy.
Anyway, yeah, I'm sure asking a huge multinational to change their basic practices will work. Maybe you would be shocked if they declined his request, but I would be shocked if they even passed his request beyond the service department. If it helps you to be convinced, back when I was dumb enough to bank with Bank of America, I got fed up with the fees and actually did ask them to change their ways and stop charging fees. Are you shocked that they didn't do so?
I took my money elsewhere even though they were the same fees as the day I signed up. (Actually, they weren't, they changed, but that didn't affect how I felt about the situation.) This guy is doing the same, and I absolutely think you are flat out wrong: he's doing the right thing by voting with his dollars. I can't even imagine that you would honestly suggest he do otherwise. What, he should keep receiving service which doesn't meet his needs? why? because the service hasn't changed while his needs have?
Orly? Once a month I see "Debit Charge Rebate" or somesuch on my bank statement. It's for a few or several dollars, and I don't know what else it could be but a debit reimbursement. But, I never bothered to check, I just happily take the dollars.
What's the problem? This man wants a certain service from his bank, and his bank declines to provide that service. This is America, where the only recourse a person has is to take their damn money somewhere else. This guy is voting with his dollars, and he deserves accolades for taking action on a service failure.
As a side point, having nothing to do with what you said, the fact that customers do not usually take the action taken by this man, and instead behave the way you proffer that he should, is the reason free-market theory is wrong. Most customers, most of the time, will do the easy thing and stick with sub-par service, out of a sense of laziness -- or however you want to phrase it, because it's easier not to act. That is a fact, and it is a fact ignored by free market theories. It is for this reason that we use sparing legislation to help achieve pro-consumer markets: because the free market would not provide optimal services.
If that assertion is keeping you from using a credit union, I encourage you to reconsider the assertion.
The notion of ATM fees angers me. Banks built and instituted these machines in order to save themselves money because now they don't have to pay a human to hand out cash. For us to pay, in order for them to save money, as asinine.
That is why I bank with USAA, which refunds all ATM fees for any ATM I use, no matter what. As a bonus, they also refund all debit card fees, which is gravy because the stores pay that fee, not me.
Fair statement.
Stupid. Do you also try to claim one of the bricks in the Hoover Dam? one square inch of the National Mall? two annual trips on Air Force One?
Give me a fucking break. It's hard to believe a human being would actually type that out and post it on the internet. (Actually, I guess that's not hard to believe.)
I was referring to Netflix, where sometimes the movie you receive isn't the first one in your queue. Thanks for the info, though, that's informative.
Blockbuster could have out-competed Netflix because they could have offered identical mail service combined with their physical stores, resulting in a slightly superior experience. But, they didn't "get it", and now they're slipping into history.
Republicans have been out-spending Democrats since long before the 1980s. Their hypocrisy goes back several generations.
All of us dropped Blockbuster long before Blockbuster dropped late fees. In fact yesterday when I first read about this story was the first time I'd heard that they'd dropped late fees, an action that smacks of desperation.
Blockbuster finally tepidly had their own through-the-mail system which, when combined with their physical stores, could have easily beat Netflix, if not for Blockbuster's incredible inability to see the handwriting on the wall.
Also, there are lots of other reasons to hate Blockbuster besides their general business model. I certainly preferred local movie shops, back when I would deign to use any of the above.
Totally agreed. "Why would anyone want a movie sent to you in the mail? You wouldn't even know what movie you are going to see next! Walking around aisles of thousands of bad movies for over an hour is clearly a superior customer experience, and we don't need to worry about this competition."
Maybe they will build their next brick-and-mortar store out of clue-by-fours.
"Dick move" -- totally agreed. That's a serious dick move, even more so considering the specific circumstances, such as that Bucky is a much larger company, and the question at hand is a matter of facts, not blind assertions. Very, very dick move. You can even hear it in his voice -- a total dick.
My citation for the free-speech claim is the Simon Singh case. This is hardly a controversial issue; Congress passed a protective law to specifically address the lack of free speech in Britain.
I totally agree with you that America also has a long way to go for universal participation in public life, even though we have come a long way already. But that's unrelated to anything I mentioned.
Why would anyone want to have, let alone use, something whose only purpose is to maim and kill, inflict suffering,misery and death?
I'm not clear on the question. Do you mean, "in order to stop someone with a similar weapon from inflicting death upon me"? Because that's what I'm talking about.
Very few people would seriously consider using a gun against a fellow human
Really? You think? I imagine almost everyone would "consider" using a gun against a person who was trying to use a gun or knife or whatever weapon against them. You wouldn't even "consider" acting in self defense? Are you serious or do I misunderstand you?
As quoted elsewhere, this appears to be a case where by the person involved needs to acquaint themselves with the appropriate procedure.
For the sake of the British public, I certainly hope this is true. Nevertheless, it leaves me wondering what the "procedure" is if it's not "call the police and have them recover the stolen goods". What else could the procedure possibly be?
To be fair, a lot of us on Slashdot are Americans and have American-style expectations of rights. Britain is not a free country, so we shouldn't try to make presumptions on British law based on American law. Apparently, in addition to not having the right to free speech (saying true things even when it damages the reputation of a corporation), and not having the right to self defense (peacefully carrying a weapon, or using a weapon when another person tries to harm you), British subjects also do not have property rights (the right to recapture goods stolen from you) or civil redress of grievances (the right to sue a person who is holding your stolen property for return of that property).
Hey, that's not a legal system that I would want to live under, but even if Britain is not a free country, it *IS* a functioning democracy (sort of), so it is the British subjects who choose this legal system for themselves, and I don't think we Americans should go too far in criticizing it.
In the interest of peer-reviewed science, I was inspired to test my coworker's Bucky Balls using the Rigid Stick Test. When we made the rigid stick, it was much straighter than the one shown in the video. Then, when we pushed it over a ledge, it stood up to 27 balls. The video showed 24 for Bucky Balls and 25 for Zen Magnets, so I would say that the test would need repetition and graphing, like they did for the ball diameters.
Still, I loved the video and I thought it was wonderful tongue-in-cheek advertising. It makes me want some Zen Magnets.
Damn, last month I bought Bucky Balls on Woot. Not only are they still, apparently, in the mail, but now I'm coveting some Zen Magnets. Great advertising, Zen! You might make yourself a sale, if these damn Bucky Balls never show up.
Totally agreed. I used a rhetorical shortcut, and I hope you can believe that I've long since discarded uni-dimensional thinking, which I agree is a problematic, yet all-too-common, way of thinking.
Sometimes the shortcut is more reasonable than other times, and in this instance I think it is fairly reasonable. How many ways can you think about copyright? It's pretty much a question of how much protection you think a work should get, with some details of what kind of protections. The OP chose one extreme on that unidimensional scale, so it was easy to respond to that as I did.
I thought it was to bolster the idea that a person could be so stupid with respect to filesharing technology.
I agree with that, but you don't see most of those fools running around advertising it on Slashdot.
Side story: that happened with my wife, in the first month of when I knew her. I told her about a song which she liked and bought on the iTunes store. Immediately confronted with the DRM, she called me and asked how to convert the song to a format she could use. After way too long of actually trying to do that, I realized how stupid I was being, and just emailed her the MP3. We talked about how that was a perfect example of how DRM only hurts paying customers, and thus why she should never buy anything with DRM. We've been together for five years and in that time neither of us have ever bought a DVD or anything from iTunes.