I have a friend who's in medical school. Needless to say he is well-educated...
Yet he PRIDES himself in the fact that he's NEVER EVER paid a dime for one single piece of software, EVER!
His justification?
"These guys make a lot of money already. They don't need the extra cash"
"It doesn't cost them a penny if I use a pirate version"
"I am proud I can get away with it"
"Oh who cares it ain't me that's hurting"
Human beings, I'm afraid, are inherently greedy and selfish. This is why my friend feels absolutely no guilt. He doesn't give a rat's ass about some struggling software designer sweating to create code. He just wants it for free.
So in the end, this honor system doesn't work. If you don't lock your store at night, people will open it and steal your stuff.
And don't give me this crap about software being too expensive! Let's let survival of the fittest weed out the over-priced software. I mean, if you think something's too expensive then use something else.
I really believe that if we could stamp out even HALF of the piracy that's present today, software prices would drop drastically and that innovation in code will skyrocket. Until then astalavista.box.sk will let the leechers steal what innovations these sucker programmers have created.
Remember how Real Networks and how their registration system basically allowed you to put any email address and without confirmation they'll start spamming that account? Well I remember TrustE was embarrassed for associating themselves with Real at that point. Guess what? Stumbles and stumbles later these guys are not to be trusted. I don't know of all the other hypocritical actions made by TrustE offhand, but if any of you remember (I know there were quite a few), please post them.
We are ALL collectively being screwed by NSI and we need to recognize and put a stop to this. Slowly they've been implementing changes that do nothing but erode our rights in order to increase their corporate profits and protect what little monopoly they have left.
First they started holding onto domain names that have expired. Then they implemented a system that makes it really tough for someone to transfer their domain name to another registrar. Now this.
Let me tell you what NSI is REALLY up to.
They've had the lionshare of domain name registrations since the beginning of the internet. So it's of no surprise that they have the largest pool of expired names. NSI holds on to every single one of them. Thousands, perhaps millions. They pay $0 to hold on to those names.
Now they start auctioning off these names. They've turned into nothing more than the world's largest CYBER-SQUATTER!
Let me make another prediction. If this change is allowed to go through, next they'll be saying, "if you win a name by auction for say $10,000, then from that point on every year you will have to pay $10,000 to renew that domain name, and you won't be allowed to change registrars either!"
It's time for the government to castrated NSI/Verisign.
Everyone seems to be bagging on Bernard Shifman, but nobody seems to be considering the disruptive attitude of Niel Schwartzman. It's one single email mistakenly sent. To then send a complaint to his ISP and then reply back with personal insults is just damn lame. And THEN to post up a website too? Get a life Niel!!
There's something serious wrong with our system when patents are valid only for 20 years while copyrights can be retained forever and ever, and thus controlled and monopolized infinitely.
Sony cares because 99.999999999999% of mod chips are being bought and used for PIRACY. This hurts their bottom line greatly because console makers lose $ when they sell their consoles. They only make it back if you purchase legitimate games.
Hey they do do that. When you order a new phone line they will always ask you if it's for residential or business use. If you pick business use they'll charge you up the rear with per-minute charges even on LOCAL calls.
Or worse yet, if you live in a business district, you won't have a choice but to sign up for business phone service.
The internet's beauty lies in its efficiency and freedom of communication, NOT in the fact that it's $ free.
With that said, the net is a million miles deep and a million miles wide. You visit wherever you feel like and I visit wherever I feel like. If there's a part of it that is paid-membership-only, then so be it. You don't want to pay for it, then don't. Nobody's forcing anything on you.
However, there's only so much people will do for free. This is why capitalism works, not only for the big, greedy corporations, but for you, me, and even your pet dog (the one that requires a snack before he performs a trick). So for better-quality content and services, paid-for-use works. Don't put it down as if they're totally worthless.
There are 2 huge obstacles that are preventing micropayments from being a reality:
1) credit card comapanies charge businesses a discount fee PLUS a transaction fee every time someone pays online with their credit card. If a merchant sells something for $1.00 he/she will end up losing $ because of the transaction fee, which is often more than $1.00 per transaction.
2) people will find it inconvenient to have to type in their financial information every time they visit a site. Yes there are 3-rd party services that have tried to cash in on this, such as Passport. However, due to factor #1, you won't be seeing many paid-for-use sites offering such an option. And when not many sites offer this option, not many people will use Passport to store their billing info either.
The main problem with the web subscription model at this point is that one must pay separately for one's internet access. Imagine having to pay fifty dollars per month for the possibility of watching cable or satellite television. To actually view any content, one would then be required to subscribe to each channel individually, at additional cost. Not many takers, eh?
Not entirely true. To view cable or satellite you'd have to buy a house, pay for electricity, and buy a tv. There are lots of other things your paid monthly internet access fee gives you besides just what you can subscribe to.
With that said, if those subscription services were to offer you a free dialup number to connect to and download their material without the need for an isp....
One possible future model is actually a return to an old one: a model similar to that of CompuServe or America Online before the internet explosion--a package of access and (often exclusive) content.
That would be a great idea. The only thing you'd have to worry about is, will they survive if they put that much $ into the infrastructure of other services they're not expert in. Look at Aol these days, they force ads down *paid* member services, AND their content is 100 miles wide but an inch deep. All they have are things you can already find on the internet: chat rooms, newsgroups, message boards, IM, stocks, basic news...
Haven't we learned from Napster and Divx? Once people have a taste for *FREE* they will never ever want to pay for it again. And one thing we all should know too, is that when it comes to computers, NOTHING can prevent us from bypassing security measures.
If worse comes to worst, people will just develop their own version of a network and grow that into another internet. The paid-for-email one will die off rather quickly.
I hope all Kaaza goes all the way to hell and never come back. Them and their "top text" virus. Screw these bastards for installing a backdoor ad software in my system.
And it wouldn't surprise me that such is an INTENTIONAL plan by M$. After all, either way you'll be using their products and they'll be extending the bank account and monopoly further.
yeah and all the spammers are coming from the USA. So now ask yourself, who's more to blame? The crooks that exploit unsecured mail servers or innocent sysadmins who are incompetent?
But Microsoft.NET product manager Adam Sohn said the techniques used by Slemko are difficult to employ.
"These are very sophisticated exploits. This isn't just somebody downloading a script from a hacker site and running it," said Sohn, who reported the company has no evidence that anyone has taken advantage of the vulnerability.
Not only are these M$ bastards not appreciative of the potential lawsuits that might arise from such a seriou breach of security, but they also have the audacity to downplay this and wipe it aside as if it's just another dust particle on a desk.
Well you know what I say? Since it's SO damn hard to exploit them, next time whoever finds an exploit should just keep it to themselves and wait for M$ to hang themselves.
Die die die Netscape. Thanks to Nutscrape's nasty engine I have to run around in circles to make web sites look descent in it. Go to hell and never come back. I hate Netscape. Ever since Aol took over, Netscape has turned into nothing but a marketing tool. Everything you touch has a link to Netscape.
Slashdot Mirror
Why is /. linking to such an unprofessional article? It doesn't tell us what statistical methodology was used, controls, the questions asked, etc.
Short on details a lot on speculation and outright assumptions.
This is irresponsible posting. It's no better than M$ FUD.
* the adult protestors disappear only to be followed by a bunch of riotous kids slipping and sliding on the slime for fun *
Haha that is one freakin' clever solution!
I have a friend who's in medical school. Needless to say he is well-educated...
Yet he PRIDES himself in the fact that he's NEVER EVER paid a dime for one single piece of software, EVER!
His justification?
"These guys make a lot of money already. They don't need the extra cash"
"It doesn't cost them a penny if I use a pirate version"
"I am proud I can get away with it"
"Oh who cares it ain't me that's hurting"
Human beings, I'm afraid, are inherently greedy and selfish. This is why my friend feels absolutely no guilt. He doesn't give a rat's ass about some struggling software designer sweating to create code. He just wants it for free.
So in the end, this honor system doesn't work. If you don't lock your store at night, people will open it and steal your stuff.
And don't give me this crap about software being too expensive! Let's let survival of the fittest weed out the over-priced software. I mean, if you think something's too expensive then use something else.
I really believe that if we could stamp out even HALF of the piracy that's present today, software prices would drop drastically and that innovation in code will skyrocket. Until then astalavista.box.sk will let the leechers steal what innovations these sucker programmers have created.
Remember how Real Networks and how their registration system basically allowed you to put any email address and without confirmation they'll start spamming that account? Well I remember TrustE was embarrassed for associating themselves with Real at that point. Guess what? Stumbles and stumbles later these guys are not to be trusted. I don't know of all the other hypocritical actions made by TrustE offhand, but if any of you remember (I know there were quite a few), please post them.
I think Steve Case and Bill Gates are sharing the same bed and perhaps semen as well.
Think about it. Aol buys Netscape. Keeps on using IE, thus further killing Netscape.
Now they buy RedHat. Hide it under the bed and continue using Windowz?
That would be a SIGHT indeed! Complete newbies mixed in with hardcore geeks!
:) :D"
Geek: "Hey how do I compile firewall capability into the kernel?"
Newb: "I don't know but I know how to send IMs
Geek: "Sigh..."
We are ALL collectively being screwed by NSI and we need to recognize and put a stop to this. Slowly they've been implementing changes that do nothing but erode our rights in order to increase their corporate profits and protect what little monopoly they have left.
First they started holding onto domain names that have expired. Then they implemented a system that makes it really tough for someone to transfer their domain name to another registrar. Now this.
Let me tell you what NSI is REALLY up to.
They've had the lionshare of domain name registrations since the beginning of the internet. So it's of no surprise that they have the largest pool of expired names. NSI holds on to every single one of them. Thousands, perhaps millions. They pay $0 to hold on to those names.
Now they start auctioning off these names. They've turned into nothing more than the world's largest CYBER-SQUATTER!
Let me make another prediction. If this change is allowed to go through, next they'll be saying, "if you win a name by auction for say $10,000, then from that point on every year you will have to pay $10,000 to renew that domain name, and you won't be allowed to change registrars either!"
It's time for the government to castrated NSI/Verisign.
Everyone seems to be bagging on Bernard Shifman, but nobody seems to be considering the disruptive attitude of Niel Schwartzman. It's one single email mistakenly sent. To then send a complaint to his ISP and then reply back with personal insults is just damn lame. And THEN to post up a website too? Get a life Niel!!
Evil? How exactly is doubleclick evil? How about leechers? Are they evil too?
There's something serious wrong with our system when patents are valid only for 20 years while copyrights can be retained forever and ever, and thus controlled and monopolized infinitely.
How can anyone just take this guy's word for it like that? Or is it that it makes some people happy to think XP has been penetrated by Al Qaeda?
Sony cares because 99.999999999999% of mod chips are being bought and used for PIRACY. This hurts their bottom line greatly because console makers lose $ when they sell their consoles. They only make it back if you purchase legitimate games.
Hey they do do that. When you order a new phone line they will always ask you if it's for residential or business use. If you pick business use they'll charge you up the rear with per-minute charges even on LOCAL calls.
Or worse yet, if you live in a business district, you won't have a choice but to sign up for business phone service.
The internet's beauty lies in its efficiency and freedom of communication, NOT in the fact that it's $ free.
With that said, the net is a million miles deep and a million miles wide. You visit wherever you feel like and I visit wherever I feel like. If there's a part of it that is paid-membership-only, then so be it. You don't want to pay for it, then don't. Nobody's forcing anything on you.
However, there's only so much people will do for free. This is why capitalism works, not only for the big, greedy corporations, but for you, me, and even your pet dog (the one that requires a snack before he performs a trick). So for better-quality content and services, paid-for-use works. Don't put it down as if they're totally worthless.
Micropayments, anyone?
There are 2 huge obstacles that are preventing micropayments from being a reality:
1) credit card comapanies charge businesses a discount fee PLUS a transaction fee every time someone pays online with their credit card. If a merchant sells something for $1.00 he/she will end up losing $ because of the transaction fee, which is often more than $1.00 per transaction.
2) people will find it inconvenient to have to type in their financial information every time they visit a site. Yes there are 3-rd party services that have tried to cash in on this, such as Passport. However, due to factor #1, you won't be seeing many paid-for-use sites offering such an option. And when not many sites offer this option, not many people will use Passport to store their billing info either.
The main problem with the web subscription model at this point is that one must pay separately for one's internet access. Imagine having to pay fifty dollars per month for the possibility of watching cable or satellite television. To actually view any content, one would then be required to subscribe to each channel individually, at additional cost. Not many takers, eh?
Not entirely true. To view cable or satellite you'd have to buy a house, pay for electricity, and buy a tv. There are lots of other things your paid monthly internet access fee gives you besides just what you can subscribe to.
With that said, if those subscription services were to offer you a free dialup number to connect to and download their material without the need for an isp....
One possible future model is actually a return to an old one: a model similar to that of CompuServe or America Online before the internet explosion--a package of access and (often exclusive) content.
That would be a great idea. The only thing you'd have to worry about is, will they survive if they put that much $ into the infrastructure of other services they're not expert in. Look at Aol these days, they force ads down *paid* member services, AND their content is 100 miles wide but an inch deep. All they have are things you can already find on the internet: chat rooms, newsgroups, message boards, IM, stocks, basic news...
Haven't we learned from Napster and Divx? Once people have a taste for *FREE* they will never ever want to pay for it again. And one thing we all should know too, is that when it comes to computers, NOTHING can prevent us from bypassing security measures.
If worse comes to worst, people will just develop their own version of a network and grow that into another internet. The paid-for-email one will die off rather quickly.
I feel exactly as you do. Capitalism to the extreme can been seen every day in those stupid Interland junkmail postcards I get.
I hope all Kaaza goes all the way to hell and never come back. Them and their "top text" virus. Screw these bastards for installing a backdoor ad software in my system.
And it wouldn't surprise me that such is an INTENTIONAL plan by M$. After all, either way you'll be using their products and they'll be extending the bank account and monopoly further.
yeah and all the spammers are coming from the USA. So now ask yourself, who's more to blame? The crooks that exploit unsecured mail servers or innocent sysadmins who are incompetent?
I'd say nuke the American spammers.
But Microsoft .NET product manager Adam Sohn said the techniques used by Slemko are difficult to employ.
"These are very sophisticated exploits. This isn't just somebody downloading a script from a hacker site and running it," said Sohn, who reported the company has no evidence that anyone has taken advantage of the vulnerability.
Not only are these M$ bastards not appreciative of the potential lawsuits that might arise from such a seriou breach of security, but they also have the audacity to downplay this and wipe it aside as if it's just another dust particle on a desk.
Well you know what I say? Since it's SO damn hard to exploit them, next time whoever finds an exploit should just keep it to themselves and wait for M$ to hang themselves.
Hey man Microsoft can't live without the "Micro". After all, Bill Gates' penis is still both "Micro"scopic and "soft".
Die die die Netscape. Thanks to Nutscrape's nasty engine I have to run around in circles to make web sites look descent in it. Go to hell and never come back. I hate Netscape. Ever since Aol took over, Netscape has turned into nothing but a marketing tool. Everything you touch has a link to Netscape.