Actually quite a few do have trouble, and are most definitely NOT rich. You see, the ones doing the vaccinations would be family practice doctors, or pediatricians, neither of which earn those giant salaries, which are reserved for brain surgeons, heads of surgical centers, and the like. This is the giant myth of our health care system, that doctors and practitioners are raping us all, it isn't the insurance companies, really.....
And to throw some reality at the 1% part, to qualify by most methods as being in the 1% of wage earners, you must make between 503,000$ and 536,000$. The average family practitioner makes$204,000, according to several sources. This puts them a pretty far distance from 1% territory. The highest salary reported in a recent survey for a family practitioner was $299,000. They aren't all struggling, by any means, but still not 1%. Pediatricians, by comparison, reported salaries between$125,000 and $231,000, with the average at $174,000. They make even less.
These figures also only take into account those doctors who make a salary, as opposed to those who may be in private practice, and living on the profits from their business. They usually make much less.
It isn't "said" at all, when the actual figure is 66%, and I claimed 60 some percent, is it? I also imagine the FTC would have gained much from your insights, and how you 'aren't buying' the accidental thing. I am sure they could have used you during the investigation. I am sure you could explain to them how it was unbelievable that a device designed to record all kinds of telemetry data might accidentally save too much.
Your anecdote about a friend being upset about youtube ad prices was very informative though. I'm just not sure what it was informing us of.
I in no way claimed Google were saints. In fact, Google is an amoral, greedy corporation driven by desire for money. Which makes them exactly the same as any other corporation. I just don't see why they are being vilified for things they aren't doing, or are completely upfront about.
This is going to be one of those moments where I wonder why I bothered, but...
Yes, Google was investigated for the wifi data collection. The FTC investigated, and determined that nothing had been done intentionally, and Google agreed to improve their privacy policies accordingly. You can read that here, should you choose to actually know what's going on.
Yes, Google required real names on G+, and used it as an 'identity service'. What I fail to understand is how that differs than every website in the cosmos requiring me to log in via Facebook. It sucks, but they all do it.
Microsoft used a 90+ percent monopoly in the desktop market to try and dominate the web. Google uses a 60 some percent dominant position (but hardly 'monopoly', given there are several hundred other search engines that could be used) to fund development of a free phone OS no one is required to use. People use it because it works. If Microsoft had provided a browser, but not bundled it in, but given it away for free, there would have been no case against them, just like there isn't against Google now. You aren't required to use Android, there are other options, and you aren't handed a free phone when you visit their search page.
Yes, they injected G+ results in their search results. They did NOT however block results from anyone else like Twitter or Facebook from appearing. They were still in the results. Were G+ results returned with higher rankings? I don't know, never turned that on, and never used G+. Because of that, I never got back search results relating to G+ at all, and as far as I know you can still turn that off, so you don't get them either. I can see why Twitter and the others were butt-hurt about this, it cuts directly into THEIR money, but why are you? Don't like it, SWITCH IT OFF. It hardly constitutes evil to allow you to opt out of something.
Yes, Apple surpassed Android in market share at the end of the year, primarily due to them releasing a new phone. If you want reporting on how the front runner changes every 12 seconds, I am sure there are places for that, but I personally don't care to read how a new vendor 'owns' a half a percent higher share of the market every single day. The first time someone passes the front runner its news. The 27th time they change places, it just isn't.
Perhaps you get modded down on posts like these because you engage in name-calling, present a closed-minded position, assume a victimized attitude, lash out with hate, and refuse to present a reasoned, well argued position? Just a thought.
Yes,and I could wallpaper this page with link after link saying it isn't. Once again, the fact that you can't get it to work doesn't mean others can't. Linking to a joke site certainly proves your point though, thank you for that. I'm sure that clears it up for everyone. Oh, and here's another hint for you genius, the same thing holds true for Windows.
The link to theinquirer.net also certainly proves your point. Dell shipping a laptop with non-functioning drivers or software (and really old software at that) is certainly Linus's fault, cause everyone knows Dell would never even be ABLE to do that with Windows, right? Like here or here or, say, here.
As for Asus, the first article you linked explains exactly why they 'abandoned' Linux. To help you out, since reading that much text must really be hard, I'll repeat it here: “People bought the original seven- and eight-inch Eee PCs for a computer to give to the kids,” Kerr said seriously.
The last article is even funnier. Did you even read it? Did it say anything about linux being broken? Bad drivers? Things not working? Nope, none of those. Why are return rates so high? Again, let me paste it in, since reading is so challenging for you:
“Unclear selling is happening, typically online. The customer will get their netbook sent to their home and they imagine to find something like a Microsoft desktop, but they see a brown Ubuntu version. They are unwilling to learn it and they were expecting to have Windows.” Carr stressed that, in these cases, it doesn’t even matter how good or bad the Linux OS is. These customers just don’t want to try something new.
So it turns out, the return rate is so high because folks like you are too lazy or stupid to even give something a try. Go figure.
In the future, if you want to prove how the driver model is broken, or it crashes constantly, or the entire thing is 'shit', you might want to actually find some supporting articles that say that, and not something else. It's how people do this whole 'debate' thing. Argue their side, provide supporting evidence...
Just for the record though, no, I don't think Linus is 'smarter than every single OS designer in the world'. I do think he's a pretty brilliant guy (when did you write your last OS?), and I think the other THOUSANDS of people who work on, and contribute to, the Linux kernel are also by and large pretty bright guys. Brighter than you, certainly. Just the fact that you think Linus is the only person controlling kernel development proves that.
Oh, I understood you just fine, and there is nothing wrong with my reading skills. I run linux just fine, every single day, on 9 different systems. I have no problems with any of them. The fact that you can't seem to get one to do anything but crash, or don't like the add-ons some companies have put forward, doesn't in any way make linux a less viable option. I imagine it's a problem with you, in particular, given the challenges you obviously also face with things like punctuation.
Thanks also for wasting our time with your bullshit anecdotes about how nothing in linux works, and all distros are crap.
Why, I believe you are right, Ubuntu IS the only Linux distro available now. I thought there were more, that didn't involve Canonical at all, but after absorbing your wisdom, I went and looked, and sure enough, all gone! Red Hat, Mint, Fedora, Arch... Gone!
No, they certainly don't OWE us the ability to buy exactly what we want, for the price we want. Not being able to buy what we want for what we consider reasonable is, however, a market failure. Market failures are known for producing things like... black markets. It's the exact reason a black market and piracy exist, and points not to a failure of the public to suck it up and spend half their income on crappy movies, but from a failure of the current business model for selling those goods. The reality is, those goods will be available, so you have two choices: Adapt your business model to meet the needs of the market, or accept that you will lose profit to secondary markets.
To some extent, the music industry has gotten the hint, and allowed reasonably priced, DRM free songs to be sold via iTunes/Amazon/Google/et al. Since that point, the sales of those mp3s has skyrocketed. People ARE willing to pay a reasonable price for the content they want. Several studies have even shown that they more than make up for in sales what they lose to people copying those DRM free files, precisely because people will pay for what they perceive as having value.
If the product is unavailable to them because of geography, or crazy DRM schemes, or is unavailable at a price that is reasonable, they will seek secondary markets for that product. It really is that simple.
Back when CDs were in the 15$ range, and DVDs were in the 10-15$ range, many asked why that 1 hour of music cost more than 2 hours of video, when the cost of producing the physical DVD was higher. CD sales were dismal. Music sales in general tanked. As soon as that music was available in a DRM free form, and a la cart instead of packaged on a CD, and reasonably priced, things made a drastic turn around.
In the meantime, Hollywood, noting that yeah, why IS a DVD cheaper than a CD? Decided to shoot themselves in the foot and raise prices on all DVDs, made Blu-Ray movies twice as expensive, and 3d video even more expensive. They then sit around, scratching their heads, and wondering why they can't get the public hooked on Blu-Ray, and why they only sell 10 3d TVs a year. If they priced Blu-Ray movies at or near the price of standard DVDs, since lets face it, the difference in costs of producing either format is negligible, they would have put a nail in the coffin of the standard DVD format 18 months ago.
And I will guess that you learned each language in a couple months, then started out with simple projects, and built up your experience, yes? So now you are offended by someone else asking how best to do the same thing? I didn't read anything in the question where she said she wanted to be making six figures tomorrow.
I know 3 software engineers, two of which have masters degrees as well. One of them is a damn fine coder. The other two have master's degrees.
Again, this applies to every single corporation, at least the western ones, who are all focused on next quarter, not next year or next decade. I fail to see why Google should look forward to failure, but Apple shouldn't, IBM shouldn't, Microsoft Shouldn't, Facebook shouldn't, Twitter shouldn't....
I also fail to see where you showed how fast an innovative culture can be shattered, let alone how Google qualifies. The "innovative" Google services you seem to have once loved weren't innovative then either. Gmail? Pretty sure I could do web email quite a while before it came along. Reader? We all had RSS feed readers before that. Search? I'm sure at the time, no one thought Google could possibly dethrone Yahoo, since they owned search. By your arguments, Google should NEVER have been successful, since all they did was take other things that existed, and improve them. But then, Bic seems to be doing just fine, doing nothing but improving ink pens, no? Facebook didn't invent social networking, but they own it now. Google didn't invent search, but they own it now. They stay ahead by improving what they have, and trying new things as well. Those new things don't always have to be innovative. They don't have to be never before seen ideas, only better than what everyone else is doing.
Sure they pay a 'living' wage, if your definition of living is a biscuit and tea every 12 hours, and living in a dorm because you can't afford a house.
The point, which you obviously missed, was that they certainly don't pay enough to those workers for them to buy iPhones and iPads, which reduces the number of those items they can sell, probably by more than they would 'lose' by paying more money. If no one can afford to buy your stuff, you can't afford to sell them. Its a fairly easy cycle to understand. Lowering wages everywhere, and exploiting third world slave states does nothing but move you toward a time when no one can afford to buy from you. The current growths in most industries, almost across the board, is fueled by consumer credit spending, which is unsustainable for much longer.
Still wrong. Unless the merchant tells you it is Coke, then serves you Pepsi, no infringement has occurred. They aren't required to correct you in any way.
Actually, unless the person giving you the drink TELLS YOU the Pepsi is Coke, it still isn't infringement, just poor service. If the server called it Coke, then its a problem, since the statute states rather explicitly that the person uses a word in commerce that could cause confusion as to the origin of goods, then it's infringement. It says nothing at all about the customer asking for something and being given something else, or not correcting them in THEIR usage.
Your waiter will likely never say to your request for Coke "Sorry, but I am required by law to inform you we sell Pepsi." What they say is "Is Pepsi ok?" Because they know if they don't ask, someone will complain. It has nothing at all to do with being legally required to do so.
Actually yes I do. There are/were ways to export your data before the servers shut down, and several projects (in various stages of operation) to operate home-brew servers.
Your option to continue using desktop software is illegal, and average users either don't know how, or don't want to break the law, to continue to use that software. I'm guessing it is also a situation most businesses don't want to get into, so your argument is useless. And while Google hasn't done this for all services, many (including wave) have been open sourced, or turned over to others, so the option still exists to use it.
Yes, you are right, you are the soul arbiter of what is exciting or not. Just because YOU don't find anything exciting there, doesn't mean others don't.
Oh, and lets not forget, innovation means trying new things, to see what becomes exiting or popular, not sticking to known, exciting things, yes? The fact is, they spend money on projects all the time, start new projects all the time (which you argued against, but is demonstrably false).
Actually, any more, Wal-mart is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more companies lower their wages and benefits to compete with Wal-mart, the more people there are who can't afford to go anywhere but Wal-mart.
Even way back when, Henry Ford paid well above the prevailing wage to his workers, because he understood if his workers couldn't afford his cars, no one else could either, and that loss in wages would end up returning to him in extra sales. Something that seems forgotten today. How many more iPhones could Apple sell, if they paid workers a living wage, or even above a living wage? The offshoring 'savings' (which many studies have debunked, and many businesses now turned from) is a short term gain at best. It drives down wages for everyone, making sure you sell less and less.
I'm sorry, can you please fill me in on the exciting innovations coming from Microsoft lately? Live tiles? On the google side, did you forget Car, Wave, G+, WDYL, Swiffy, Wallet, Offers, Music, Fusion Tables, Panoramio, Schemer... and those are just the recent ones. Some of those may be services they acquired from others, but some are also their own.
Can you explain to me how this is different than, say, every other company in the world? Apple's latest innovation? Siri? Bought from someone else, then magically it doesn't work on anything but their newest phone, despite the fact it was available as an app for the older phones? Microsoft? Even their browser was bought from someone else, not to mention FrontPage (I didn't say it was good...), Excel, the Explore pane in Bing... Adobe has DreamWeaver, Flash, Fireworks...
The problem with Google now is greed. Sadly though, that's the problem with every other company on the planet. Microsoft announces that from now on, web programming should be done in HTML5 and Javascript, and screw all of you that learned ASP.NET. Adobe gives you mobile flash, Adobe taketh away.
Google continues to push forward with new services (G+, Car) and continue to add to older services (New google search changes, gmail interface changes) even if those turn out not to be popular. The search thing seems to be earning them some grief in particular, yet they tried something new. They could easily have left gmail and search exactly as it was, or not started G+, or Reader, or Wave. They DID change things, and start new things though, so that kind of kills your argument that they aren't putting money into anything, or doing R&D.
Or, as seems far more likely the case, these services are being removed *precisely because no one relied on them*. They are services that are not getting widespread use, so they are being shut down. Are you still whining over the loss of Microsoft Bob, consigned to the dustbin of history because no one used it?
Yes, cloud services can be shut down. Google generally goes out of their way to make sure you can get your data out, and gives fairly generous time frames in which to do so. They seem to be better about it than most other companies, including those that produce only desktop apps.
Despite grouching to the contrary, there isn't much difference any more between a cloud app going away, and a desktop app being retired. If Microsoft suddenly decided to kill Windows tomorrow, how long could you continue to use it? I'm going to guess "Until the next time you swap out a video card, forcing you to reactivate your copy". What happens when the activation servers aren't there? You have to rely on the company to act properly, and give you a time frame to move to something else during which the activation servers will still be live, or they provide some permanent activation.
Yes, I think DRM sucks, I think activation schemes suck, but they already exist, and until they are gone (which seems fairly unlikely to me) there isn't a major difference between desktop software and cloud services, once the plug is pulled. It is no more 'ridiculous' to rely on cloud services than it is to rely on desktop apps, or the x86 architecture, or the public power grid. Any of those could be changed at any time, though some are far less likely than others to change. Is it more likely gmail goes away, or Outlook/Exchange? Both companies make a crazy amount of money from their offering. One is 'cloud based', one not. Which is more 'ridiculous' to rely on?
I am sure those three people care quite a bit, as do their families. You will also care if you host a site, some idiot posts a link to something copyrighted, and your site gets taken down because of it. Or you happen to have your site hosted on a machine with someone else who has an offending link, and you lose your site because of it. Or someone just decides they don't like your site, files to have it removed, and it goes away, taking YOUR livelihood with it. SOPA isn't unpopular because it fights piracy. It is unpopular because it goes well and beyond fighting piracy. It is unpopular because it very clearly puts piracy prevention above silly things like free speech, the property rights of people who aren't media conglomerates, things like that.
Actually no, it will not mean 'more work for them, and cut into their bottom line' since one of the provisions they helped write into the law makes them exempt from it.
What is the benefit to them? Domains seized by the government go to them by default, which they then auction off or get paid for renewals for, not to mention getting paid by the government for taking care of the 'costs' of the seizure in the first place. Their support (in fact, their active participation in the crafting) of this bill is completely self-serving and has little or nothing to do with stopping piracy or anything else other than increasing their profit.
Are all corporations evil? No. Why are they demonized, as you put it? Because they are completely amoral. A corporation can be neither good nor evil. They are artificial creations with no morality, and no goal, except to maximize shareholder value. If that means doing things that actual humans think is evil, then they will. If that means doing something actual humans think is good, they will. The amoral reality of corporate 'personhood' is the reason they are demonized. Its the reason Ford can know they have a problem with vehicles rolling over, know it may relate to the tires, or their own designs, know that people are dying, but make the conscious decision not to do anything about it, because paying out lawsuits later would be *cheaper than a recall*.
Also, what you fail to note about what happened during this economy was the fact that the very same people making those sub-prime loans were packaging them into bundles, lying about the risk involved in those bundles, then selling shares of those bundles to others. In many cases (Goldman Sachs did this) they were at the same time buying insurance against those bundles, and/or short-selling them, because they knew they were going to fail. Making it sound like the poor banks just made some bad calls belittles their active participation in bringing us to that point in the first place.
Except that you can't sue them for being negligent in making a product, since no regulations would exist allowing you to do so, since those regulations could not be applied in a truly 'free' market. The only remedy in a truly 'free' market is to stop buying any negligently made products, so they stop being made. Unfortunately, that doesn't much help the people who died or were injured, eh?
We have never, nor will we ever, have a truly free market. That isn't just because of government regulation, but also because corporations don't want it. For a market to truly be 'free' and regulate itself, all costs associated with a product have to be internalized to that product. The price of a gallon of gas should include the cost not only to drill, refine, pump, and distribute that gas, but also the cost of removing the carbon and pollutants involved in burning it, the cost of 'replacing' that gas to create a renewable resource, and any other costs associated with it. The same is true of cars. Why are electric cars so much more expensive than gas powered ones? It isn't because the technology is so expensive, its because the price of a gas powered car is artificially lowered, because most of the costs are externalized. The oil companies get subsidies to make gas cheaper, the oil companies and car companies don't have to pay for cleanup of the byproducts of their output, so none of that is reflected in the price, which makes it more popular in the 'free market'.
Why do you think many manufacturing plants move to countries like China or India? They will claim it is because of labor costs, but those are really a small portion of the cost of most businesses. They move to those countries because they do not require them to clean up after themselves near as much as other nations do, thus allowing them to externalize even more costs.
As a 'Linux fan', you should know that not everything provided in your install was provided by the manufacturer, or was part of 'Linux'. Neither is CarrierIQ in any way part of Android. It is a separate piece of software, installed on some Android based phones by the carrier. It does not send data to Google, and there is even some debate on whether it sends anything, or merely logs it. Google is not benefitting from this data, nor can they sell it to others, since it isn't data they collected, or even knew about. It also, I might add, is installed on every iPhone from AT&T. It is likely still logging, but only sends the data back to CIQ if you allow it (which on older iPhones, is when you activate it. there seems to be no way to turn it off after that).
Lets also keep in mind that every single one of the companies in the US that provide telephone or internet service are ALSO collecting fees mandated by the government, meant to be used to upgrade their infrastructure, and provide service to underserved communities. So they find it 'too expensive' to upgrade their bandwidth using the money I already gave them, both in those collected fees AND my subscription cost, so they now need more? Maybe they should have spent some of that money on actual infrastructure improvements, instead of CEO bonuses and lobbying.
I'd actually be fine with metered bandwidth, under one condition: we take the bandwidth they already sold me (26mbps down), multiply that by the number of seconds in 30 days, then divide that by my 50$ bill. That sets the rate at which I pay. Then if I only use an average of 13Mpbs of that, my bill just got cut in half.
The reason they all went to 'unlimited, xxMbps plans in the first place was because they knew they would make a fortune on people paying for far more bandwidth than they actually consume. Now that we get close to consuming that, they want to go back to metered pricing, at a considerably higher rate than we've been paying.
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Actually quite a few do have trouble, and are most definitely NOT rich. You see, the ones doing the vaccinations would be family practice doctors, or pediatricians, neither of which earn those giant salaries, which are reserved for brain surgeons, heads of surgical centers, and the like. This is the giant myth of our health care system, that doctors and practitioners are raping us all, it isn't the insurance companies, really.....
And to throw some reality at the 1% part, to qualify by most methods as being in the 1% of wage earners, you must make between 503,000$ and 536,000$. The average family practitioner makes$204,000, according to several sources. This puts them a pretty far distance from 1% territory. The highest salary reported in a recent survey for a family practitioner was $299,000. They aren't all struggling, by any means, but still not 1%. Pediatricians, by comparison, reported salaries between$125,000 and $231,000, with the average at $174,000. They make even less.
These figures also only take into account those doctors who make a salary, as opposed to those who may be in private practice, and living on the profits from their business. They usually make much less.
It isn't "said" at all, when the actual figure is 66%, and I claimed 60 some percent, is it? I also imagine the FTC would have gained much from your insights, and how you 'aren't buying' the accidental thing. I am sure they could have used you during the investigation. I am sure you could explain to them how it was unbelievable that a device designed to record all kinds of telemetry data might accidentally save too much.
Your anecdote about a friend being upset about youtube ad prices was very informative though. I'm just not sure what it was informing us of.
I in no way claimed Google were saints. In fact, Google is an amoral, greedy corporation driven by desire for money. Which makes them exactly the same as any other corporation. I just don't see why they are being vilified for things they aren't doing, or are completely upfront about.
This is going to be one of those moments where I wonder why I bothered, but...
Yes, Google was investigated for the wifi data collection. The FTC investigated, and determined that nothing had been done intentionally, and Google agreed to improve their privacy policies accordingly. You can read that here, should you choose to actually know what's going on.
Yes, Google required real names on G+, and used it as an 'identity service'. What I fail to understand is how that differs than every website in the cosmos requiring me to log in via Facebook. It sucks, but they all do it.
Microsoft used a 90+ percent monopoly in the desktop market to try and dominate the web. Google uses a 60 some percent dominant position (but hardly 'monopoly', given there are several hundred other search engines that could be used) to fund development of a free phone OS no one is required to use. People use it because it works. If Microsoft had provided a browser, but not bundled it in, but given it away for free, there would have been no case against them, just like there isn't against Google now. You aren't required to use Android, there are other options, and you aren't handed a free phone when you visit their search page.
Yes, they injected G+ results in their search results. They did NOT however block results from anyone else like Twitter or Facebook from appearing. They were still in the results. Were G+ results returned with higher rankings? I don't know, never turned that on, and never used G+. Because of that, I never got back search results relating to G+ at all, and as far as I know you can still turn that off, so you don't get them either. I can see why Twitter and the others were butt-hurt about this, it cuts directly into THEIR money, but why are you? Don't like it, SWITCH IT OFF. It hardly constitutes evil to allow you to opt out of something.
Yes, Apple surpassed Android in market share at the end of the year, primarily due to them releasing a new phone. If you want reporting on how the front runner changes every 12 seconds, I am sure there are places for that, but I personally don't care to read how a new vendor 'owns' a half a percent higher share of the market every single day. The first time someone passes the front runner its news. The 27th time they change places, it just isn't.
Perhaps you get modded down on posts like these because you engage in name-calling, present a closed-minded position, assume a victimized attitude, lash out with hate, and refuse to present a reasoned, well argued position? Just a thought.
Yes,and I could wallpaper this page with link after link saying it isn't. Once again, the fact that you can't get it to work doesn't mean others can't. Linking to a joke site certainly proves your point though, thank you for that. I'm sure that clears it up for everyone. Oh, and here's another hint for you genius, the same thing holds true for Windows.
The link to theinquirer.net also certainly proves your point. Dell shipping a laptop with non-functioning drivers or software (and really old software at that) is certainly Linus's fault, cause everyone knows Dell would never even be ABLE to do that with Windows, right? Like here or here or, say, here.
As for Asus, the first article you linked explains exactly why they 'abandoned' Linux. To help you out, since reading that much text must really be hard, I'll repeat it here: “People bought the original seven- and eight-inch Eee PCs for a computer to give to the kids,” Kerr said seriously.
The last article is even funnier. Did you even read it? Did it say anything about linux being broken? Bad drivers? Things not working? Nope, none of those. Why are return rates so high? Again, let me paste it in, since reading is so challenging for you:
So it turns out, the return rate is so high because folks like you are too lazy or stupid to even give something a try. Go figure.
In the future, if you want to prove how the driver model is broken, or it crashes constantly, or the entire thing is 'shit', you might want to actually find some supporting articles that say that, and not something else. It's how people do this whole 'debate' thing. Argue their side, provide supporting evidence...
Just for the record though, no, I don't think Linus is 'smarter than every single OS designer in the world'. I do think he's a pretty brilliant guy (when did you write your last OS?), and I think the other THOUSANDS of people who work on, and contribute to, the Linux kernel are also by and large pretty bright guys. Brighter than you, certainly. Just the fact that you think Linus is the only person controlling kernel development proves that.
Oh, I understood you just fine, and there is nothing wrong with my reading skills. I run linux just fine, every single day, on 9 different systems. I have no problems with any of them. The fact that you can't seem to get one to do anything but crash, or don't like the add-ons some companies have put forward, doesn't in any way make linux a less viable option. I imagine it's a problem with you, in particular, given the challenges you obviously also face with things like punctuation.
Thanks also for wasting our time with your bullshit anecdotes about how nothing in linux works, and all distros are crap.
Why, I believe you are right, Ubuntu IS the only Linux distro available now. I thought there were more, that didn't involve Canonical at all, but after absorbing your wisdom, I went and looked, and sure enough, all gone! Red Hat, Mint, Fedora, Arch... Gone!
No, they certainly don't OWE us the ability to buy exactly what we want, for the price we want. Not being able to buy what we want for what we consider reasonable is, however, a market failure. Market failures are known for producing things like... black markets. It's the exact reason a black market and piracy exist, and points not to a failure of the public to suck it up and spend half their income on crappy movies, but from a failure of the current business model for selling those goods. The reality is, those goods will be available, so you have two choices: Adapt your business model to meet the needs of the market, or accept that you will lose profit to secondary markets.
To some extent, the music industry has gotten the hint, and allowed reasonably priced, DRM free songs to be sold via iTunes/Amazon/Google/et al. Since that point, the sales of those mp3s has skyrocketed. People ARE willing to pay a reasonable price for the content they want. Several studies have even shown that they more than make up for in sales what they lose to people copying those DRM free files, precisely because people will pay for what they perceive as having value.
If the product is unavailable to them because of geography, or crazy DRM schemes, or is unavailable at a price that is reasonable, they will seek secondary markets for that product. It really is that simple.
Back when CDs were in the 15$ range, and DVDs were in the 10-15$ range, many asked why that 1 hour of music cost more than 2 hours of video, when the cost of producing the physical DVD was higher. CD sales were dismal. Music sales in general tanked. As soon as that music was available in a DRM free form, and a la cart instead of packaged on a CD, and reasonably priced, things made a drastic turn around.
In the meantime, Hollywood, noting that yeah, why IS a DVD cheaper than a CD? Decided to shoot themselves in the foot and raise prices on all DVDs, made Blu-Ray movies twice as expensive, and 3d video even more expensive. They then sit around, scratching their heads, and wondering why they can't get the public hooked on Blu-Ray, and why they only sell 10 3d TVs a year. If they priced Blu-Ray movies at or near the price of standard DVDs, since lets face it, the difference in costs of producing either format is negligible, they would have put a nail in the coffin of the standard DVD format 18 months ago.
I eagerly await the citations of successful lawsuits against Applebees for not making sure I understand they sell Pepsi.
And I will guess that you learned each language in a couple months, then started out with simple projects, and built up your experience, yes? So now you are offended by someone else asking how best to do the same thing? I didn't read anything in the question where she said she wanted to be making six figures tomorrow.
I know 3 software engineers, two of which have masters degrees as well. One of them is a damn fine coder. The other two have master's degrees.
Again, this applies to every single corporation, at least the western ones, who are all focused on next quarter, not next year or next decade. I fail to see why Google should look forward to failure, but Apple shouldn't, IBM shouldn't, Microsoft Shouldn't, Facebook shouldn't, Twitter shouldn't....
I also fail to see where you showed how fast an innovative culture can be shattered, let alone how Google qualifies. The "innovative" Google services you seem to have once loved weren't innovative then either. Gmail? Pretty sure I could do web email quite a while before it came along. Reader? We all had RSS feed readers before that. Search? I'm sure at the time, no one thought Google could possibly dethrone Yahoo, since they owned search. By your arguments, Google should NEVER have been successful, since all they did was take other things that existed, and improve them. But then, Bic seems to be doing just fine, doing nothing but improving ink pens, no? Facebook didn't invent social networking, but they own it now. Google didn't invent search, but they own it now. They stay ahead by improving what they have, and trying new things as well. Those new things don't always have to be innovative. They don't have to be never before seen ideas, only better than what everyone else is doing.
Sure they pay a 'living' wage, if your definition of living is a biscuit and tea every 12 hours, and living in a dorm because you can't afford a house.
The point, which you obviously missed, was that they certainly don't pay enough to those workers for them to buy iPhones and iPads, which reduces the number of those items they can sell, probably by more than they would 'lose' by paying more money. If no one can afford to buy your stuff, you can't afford to sell them. Its a fairly easy cycle to understand. Lowering wages everywhere, and exploiting third world slave states does nothing but move you toward a time when no one can afford to buy from you. The current growths in most industries, almost across the board, is fueled by consumer credit spending, which is unsustainable for much longer.
Still wrong. Unless the merchant tells you it is Coke, then serves you Pepsi, no infringement has occurred. They aren't required to correct you in any way.
Actually, unless the person giving you the drink TELLS YOU the Pepsi is Coke, it still isn't infringement, just poor service. If the server called it Coke, then its a problem, since the statute states rather explicitly that the person uses a word in commerce that could cause confusion as to the origin of goods, then it's infringement. It says nothing at all about the customer asking for something and being given something else, or not correcting them in THEIR usage.
Your waiter will likely never say to your request for Coke "Sorry, but I am required by law to inform you we sell Pepsi." What they say is "Is Pepsi ok?" Because they know if they don't ask, someone will complain. It has nothing at all to do with being legally required to do so.
Actually yes I do. There are/were ways to export your data before the servers shut down, and several projects (in various stages of operation) to operate home-brew servers.
Your option to continue using desktop software is illegal, and average users either don't know how, or don't want to break the law, to continue to use that software. I'm guessing it is also a situation most businesses don't want to get into, so your argument is useless. And while Google hasn't done this for all services, many (including wave) have been open sourced, or turned over to others, so the option still exists to use it.
Yes, you are right, you are the soul arbiter of what is exciting or not. Just because YOU don't find anything exciting there, doesn't mean others don't. Oh, and lets not forget, innovation means trying new things, to see what becomes exiting or popular, not sticking to known, exciting things, yes? The fact is, they spend money on projects all the time, start new projects all the time (which you argued against, but is demonstrably false).
Actually, any more, Wal-mart is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more companies lower their wages and benefits to compete with Wal-mart, the more people there are who can't afford to go anywhere but Wal-mart.
Even way back when, Henry Ford paid well above the prevailing wage to his workers, because he understood if his workers couldn't afford his cars, no one else could either, and that loss in wages would end up returning to him in extra sales. Something that seems forgotten today. How many more iPhones could Apple sell, if they paid workers a living wage, or even above a living wage? The offshoring 'savings' (which many studies have debunked, and many businesses now turned from) is a short term gain at best. It drives down wages for everyone, making sure you sell less and less.
I'm sorry, can you please fill me in on the exciting innovations coming from Microsoft lately? Live tiles? On the google side, did you forget Car, Wave, G+, WDYL, Swiffy, Wallet, Offers, Music, Fusion Tables, Panoramio, Schemer... and those are just the recent ones. Some of those may be services they acquired from others, but some are also their own.
Can you explain to me how this is different than, say, every other company in the world? Apple's latest innovation? Siri? Bought from someone else, then magically it doesn't work on anything but their newest phone, despite the fact it was available as an app for the older phones? Microsoft? Even their browser was bought from someone else, not to mention FrontPage (I didn't say it was good...), Excel, the Explore pane in Bing... Adobe has DreamWeaver, Flash, Fireworks...
The problem with Google now is greed. Sadly though, that's the problem with every other company on the planet. Microsoft announces that from now on, web programming should be done in HTML5 and Javascript, and screw all of you that learned ASP.NET. Adobe gives you mobile flash, Adobe taketh away.
Google continues to push forward with new services (G+, Car) and continue to add to older services (New google search changes, gmail interface changes) even if those turn out not to be popular. The search thing seems to be earning them some grief in particular, yet they tried something new. They could easily have left gmail and search exactly as it was, or not started G+, or Reader, or Wave. They DID change things, and start new things though, so that kind of kills your argument that they aren't putting money into anything, or doing R&D.
Or, as seems far more likely the case, these services are being removed *precisely because no one relied on them*. They are services that are not getting widespread use, so they are being shut down. Are you still whining over the loss of Microsoft Bob, consigned to the dustbin of history because no one used it?
Yes, cloud services can be shut down. Google generally goes out of their way to make sure you can get your data out, and gives fairly generous time frames in which to do so. They seem to be better about it than most other companies, including those that produce only desktop apps.
Despite grouching to the contrary, there isn't much difference any more between a cloud app going away, and a desktop app being retired. If Microsoft suddenly decided to kill Windows tomorrow, how long could you continue to use it? I'm going to guess "Until the next time you swap out a video card, forcing you to reactivate your copy". What happens when the activation servers aren't there? You have to rely on the company to act properly, and give you a time frame to move to something else during which the activation servers will still be live, or they provide some permanent activation.
Yes, I think DRM sucks, I think activation schemes suck, but they already exist, and until they are gone (which seems fairly unlikely to me) there isn't a major difference between desktop software and cloud services, once the plug is pulled. It is no more 'ridiculous' to rely on cloud services than it is to rely on desktop apps, or the x86 architecture, or the public power grid. Any of those could be changed at any time, though some are far less likely than others to change. Is it more likely gmail goes away, or Outlook/Exchange? Both companies make a crazy amount of money from their offering. One is 'cloud based', one not. Which is more 'ridiculous' to rely on?
I am sure those three people care quite a bit, as do their families. You will also care if you host a site, some idiot posts a link to something copyrighted, and your site gets taken down because of it. Or you happen to have your site hosted on a machine with someone else who has an offending link, and you lose your site because of it. Or someone just decides they don't like your site, files to have it removed, and it goes away, taking YOUR livelihood with it. SOPA isn't unpopular because it fights piracy. It is unpopular because it goes well and beyond fighting piracy. It is unpopular because it very clearly puts piracy prevention above silly things like free speech, the property rights of people who aren't media conglomerates, things like that.
Actually no, it will not mean 'more work for them, and cut into their bottom line' since one of the provisions they helped write into the law makes them exempt from it.
What is the benefit to them? Domains seized by the government go to them by default, which they then auction off or get paid for renewals for, not to mention getting paid by the government for taking care of the 'costs' of the seizure in the first place. Their support (in fact, their active participation in the crafting) of this bill is completely self-serving and has little or nothing to do with stopping piracy or anything else other than increasing their profit.
Are all corporations evil? No. Why are they demonized, as you put it? Because they are completely amoral. A corporation can be neither good nor evil. They are artificial creations with no morality, and no goal, except to maximize shareholder value. If that means doing things that actual humans think is evil, then they will. If that means doing something actual humans think is good, they will. The amoral reality of corporate 'personhood' is the reason they are demonized. Its the reason Ford can know they have a problem with vehicles rolling over, know it may relate to the tires, or their own designs, know that people are dying, but make the conscious decision not to do anything about it, because paying out lawsuits later would be *cheaper than a recall*.
Also, what you fail to note about what happened during this economy was the fact that the very same people making those sub-prime loans were packaging them into bundles, lying about the risk involved in those bundles, then selling shares of those bundles to others. In many cases (Goldman Sachs did this) they were at the same time buying insurance against those bundles, and/or short-selling them, because they knew they were going to fail. Making it sound like the poor banks just made some bad calls belittles their active participation in bringing us to that point in the first place.
Except that you can't sue them for being negligent in making a product, since no regulations would exist allowing you to do so, since those regulations could not be applied in a truly 'free' market. The only remedy in a truly 'free' market is to stop buying any negligently made products, so they stop being made. Unfortunately, that doesn't much help the people who died or were injured, eh?
We have never, nor will we ever, have a truly free market. That isn't just because of government regulation, but also because corporations don't want it. For a market to truly be 'free' and regulate itself, all costs associated with a product have to be internalized to that product. The price of a gallon of gas should include the cost not only to drill, refine, pump, and distribute that gas, but also the cost of removing the carbon and pollutants involved in burning it, the cost of 'replacing' that gas to create a renewable resource, and any other costs associated with it. The same is true of cars. Why are electric cars so much more expensive than gas powered ones? It isn't because the technology is so expensive, its because the price of a gas powered car is artificially lowered, because most of the costs are externalized. The oil companies get subsidies to make gas cheaper, the oil companies and car companies don't have to pay for cleanup of the byproducts of their output, so none of that is reflected in the price, which makes it more popular in the 'free market'.
Why do you think many manufacturing plants move to countries like China or India? They will claim it is because of labor costs, but those are really a small portion of the cost of most businesses. They move to those countries because they do not require them to clean up after themselves near as much as other nations do, thus allowing them to externalize even more costs.
So the categories on Android Market labeled "Top Grossing", "Top Paid" and "Top New Paid" are not somehow indicating who is voting with their dollars?
As a 'Linux fan', you should know that not everything provided in your install was provided by the manufacturer, or was part of 'Linux'. Neither is CarrierIQ in any way part of Android. It is a separate piece of software, installed on some Android based phones by the carrier. It does not send data to Google, and there is even some debate on whether it sends anything, or merely logs it. Google is not benefitting from this data, nor can they sell it to others, since it isn't data they collected, or even knew about. It also, I might add, is installed on every iPhone from AT&T. It is likely still logging, but only sends the data back to CIQ if you allow it (which on older iPhones, is when you activate it. there seems to be no way to turn it off after that).
Lets also keep in mind that every single one of the companies in the US that provide telephone or internet service are ALSO collecting fees mandated by the government, meant to be used to upgrade their infrastructure, and provide service to underserved communities. So they find it 'too expensive' to upgrade their bandwidth using the money I already gave them, both in those collected fees AND my subscription cost, so they now need more? Maybe they should have spent some of that money on actual infrastructure improvements, instead of CEO bonuses and lobbying.
I'd actually be fine with metered bandwidth, under one condition: we take the bandwidth they already sold me (26mbps down), multiply that by the number of seconds in 30 days, then divide that by my 50$ bill. That sets the rate at which I pay. Then if I only use an average of 13Mpbs of that, my bill just got cut in half.
The reason they all went to 'unlimited, xxMbps plans in the first place was because they knew they would make a fortune on people paying for far more bandwidth than they actually consume. Now that we get close to consuming that, they want to go back to metered pricing, at a considerably higher rate than we've been paying.