Never mind Gentoo, Gnome, Debian, and GNU all being hacked within the span of six months. Linux would never be targetted. Let's just randomly suggest to people that they give up all their software, hardware support, and so on and just "try Linux," because setting up Linux is always as easy as telling them to. Who knows why entire doc HOWTO sites are set up for it.
Suggestion: make good CDs, and maybe I'll buy the whole thing.
I'm sick of pointing this out--kids today LOVE the music coming out. The fogies at Slashdot think that their niche opinion represent the majority. Today's computer users aren't downloading music because they don't like the whole albums--they're downloading because it's free and available.
Well, considering that the RIAA still hasn't figured out that the ridiculous prices CDs sell for is one of the major reasons why illegal filesharing became so popular in the first place, I'm somehow not surprised that they don't realize this point, either.
Same thing. Illegal piracy isn't popular because of "ridiculous prices." It's popular because it's convenient and everywhere, and it lets you rip off albums for free. They RAR up whole band discographies now and stick 'em up on eMule.
Slashdot wants you to believe that piracy is justified because CDs are overpriced (they're $12.99 at my store...that money covers a lot more than the pressing of the CD), that the RIAA is somehow bad for going after copyright infringers (which is exactly what Slashdotters were saying they should do when Napster was being sued), and that they somehow rip off artists even though artists willingly sign their contracts, shit on gold toilets, and never asked you for your "help" in ripping them off.
The anti-RIAA propoganda around this place is so annoying. Look at the headline--raising the price of downloads by a dollar is suddenly a "nasty easter egg." Slashdotters think their niche opinions represent the majority. You guys need to get off this site and see the rest of the world. ADMIT THE TRUTH--those millions of traders aren't using Kazaa to "sample" albums, they're not using it because they have some sort of righteous opposition to something called the "RIAA"--they're using Kazaa to download music without paying for it. People have yet to offer a valid legal or moral justification for ripping artists off.
But go ahead and post another anti-RIAA article, then after that another anti-Microsoft article. Recycle, repeat.
I agree completely. I don't understand how people can proudly display their desktop screenshots that are rife with dingy gray, ugly fonts that are a little too large and rife with very bad rendering (numbers seem to be a big problem, as well as Ws and other characters), and so on.
Here comes the part where people direct me to kde-look.org, which is like one big storinghouse for completely unusuable theme rejects that are meant only for making great screenshots but not for staring at all day on a screen.
This is why I prefer GNOME--extremely simple and clean. It's easy to look at, particularly for extended periods of time (not to mention that it's more professional to have an Applications and an Actions menu, instead of a big, goofy, giant "K").
Of course, I'd prefer we finally get rid of "start menus," taskbars, integrated net/filesystem browsers, etc. It's like people assume because it was all in Windows 98, it's a-okay to use it. Let's rip off everything in Windows 98-era GUIs, then criticize the company we stole them from and say we surpassed them!
Your post ignores the point that Linux desktops are missing a lot of functionality and ease of use that Windows has--drivers, binary installation/uninstallation, setting up shared printers (thanks, Eric Raymond), etc.
It's not that people want to use Windows, they just want to use something easy. Users aren't like the niche world of Slashdot, where the OS you use is like a holy religion you follow--people don't give a shit that they're using "Windows." Most people don't even know what version of Windows they're using, and they don't even pay attention to the bootup screen that says "Windows XP."
Together with a recent article on GNOME, it's become clear that the Linux desktop has all but surpassed proprietary alternatives.
Uh, no...no, it hasn't. Not one bit.
The day someone can come home and stick in a CD and install a printer driver for their new HP Laserjet is the day Linux will ever even come close to OS X or Windows. Not to mention all the hundreds of interface inconsistencies in KDE and GNOME. Why are their "More Programs" subgroups on the K menu? Why are their "System," "Control Center," and "Preferences" subgroups when those are redundant? I mean, I could go on and on and on and on...maybe when Linux someday gets a desktop binary installation/uninstallation API instead of relying on the godawful package managers out there.
there are more people looking at the code, so it is less likely that bugs slip through
People always say that, as if there are thousands of guys sitting down doing nothing but "looking at code" all the time. I'm sure a few devs will examine their code for bugs when they can, but this whole thousand-eyes myth is simply that. I've never even bothered poring through the Linux kernel source, and I imagine few here at Slashdot have except for a few casual curious glimpses now and then, but I'm talking about actually sitting down and looking through it. Really, it's only the kernel dev guys who do that. Along those lines, nobody sits down poring through KDE code or anything else. The only people who are ever interested in looking through the code are the developers who are writing it.
Not to mention that OSS has plenty of flaws and bugs all the time, in varying degrees in comparison to, say, Windows. It's a nice hypothetical idea, but in reality lots of things slip through all the time.
But didn't you just prove his point? When the government really cares about security--i.e., a "nuclear weapon command centre"--they're not going to open up the code, because in that case security through obscurity works.
It's time to realize it's just to different approaches to the same coin, each with advantages. Both have inherent security flaws in them, to varying degrees.
I expect the usual defensive responses to this article. Hell, the summary itself was biased--"usual FUD." Heaven forbid someone outside the little niche world of Slashdot (i.e., the real world) raise security concerns about Linux, like OSS is some sort of unstoppable secure force. Hell, I just visited Gentoo.org and there are things like remote buffer exploits in MPlayer that allow arbitrary code to be run. Things like that never get mentioned on Slashdot, though.
Check out LinuxSecurity's security advisories for weekly Linux distro security advisories--all the buffer overflows and exploits you thought only Windows had. And let's not forget the hacking of GNOME, Debian, Gentoo, and GNU (twice!).
All I'm saying is it's stupid to get all reactive over someone just questioning the 100% secure reputation that OSS is given by fanboys. In the real world, they do that.
That's not "eye candy." That is talking about the hardware acceleration and vector scaling features of Longhorn. It will scale back if your hardware can't handle all of it. Obviously there will be visual cues, but that's not what I was referring to. My point still stands--I didn't refer to any eye candy.
A very incomplete list off the top of my head
on
Microsoft Clips Longhorn
·
· Score: 4, Informative
* Replacement of Win32 with.NET, even explorer.exe is running as managed code in the leaked betas. I can't even begin to list the advantages of this..NET is great, and with Mono making great strides in the language specification, any language will be able to compile intermediate.NET code, and code from different languages will operate together without a care.
* Avalon--presentation system that is completely hardware-accelerated and vector-based. One video showed two Notepads rotating around while still completely usable at the same time a video played in Media Player. Old apps will be compatible.
* XAML and other technologies--I've said it before, but it was just such a cool example. During an MSDN video (freely available at the site), the dev used Win32 Emacs to write a 10-15 XAML app that let him update his blog, complete with resized vector graphics and a video of moving clouds looping on the background of the window, all using the command-line.NET compiler.
* WinFS will still exist. They're just cutting a few features that will probably be re-introduced in a service pack anyway. WinFS is incredibly exciting--one WinFS dev went to the command line and did a query for certain employees within the last week, and it came up in less than a second. No more brute-force searching. Also, no file drives. And yet, they're retaining folder and drive structures in case you want to operate that way.
* Aero--this is their top-secret interface yet to be unvieled. See, Longhorn has multiple tiers of visual operation. If you can't handle the effects, it scales back to a lesser tier, going all the way down to an unaccelerated 2D inteface like that of Windows 2000. Aero is the top tier and is supposed to be, according to them, "photorealistic" and will be a new interface for Windows taking advantage of 3D acceleration. They said they don't want to reveal any of it until release because they fear it will be ripped off by competitors (a fair judgment considering all the ripped-off Start menus and taskbars on standard Linux desktops...).
* Christ, man, there's more, but I'll get accused of being a Microsoftie even more than the trolls already do, so I'll stop.
Why would popularity in the server market have anything to do with availability of an Office product? And what "popularity of Linux in the next 2 years?" KDE and GNOME aren't going to make a dent in Longhorn, not in their current mindsets.
Not only that, but installers are XML scriptable. You can even custom script your own Windows installations, leaving in or out exactly what you want. OEMs are definitely going to use it, as well as sysadmins who want total control over what gets installed and set up.
This info has been out for a while, but it doesn't surprise me most Slashdotters don't know about it because whenever I submitted links to Slashdot when the articles came out at Winsupersite, they were rejected in favor of "New M$ Hole!!" rubbish.
You're clearly a comic fanboy who things every adaptation should be direct one-to-one.
I really hope they listened to Mr. Lee on this one. He's sorta the guy behind spidey, and he had some sound advice on how the first movie coulda been a bit better. His argument as to the necessity of Peter Parker "making" his web solution and shooter mechanism made for some good sense
Uh, no, he agreed that it was better for the movie that shooting webs was part of his genetic mutation. Why?
Because it would have been fucking stupid. If all the sudden he's able to make super-industrial-strength web shooter complete with reloadable cartridges...in a far-fetched movie, that just pushes it to the realm of stupidity.
and for him to point out that William Defoe was a superb actor and, thus, should have had his face shown while in "Goblin" mode is something the director should have figured out first.
That's just an opinion. Sam Raimi wanted to use the goblin mask. Big fucking deal. We got plenty of William's face, particularly in the schizo scenes.
With makeup and CGI like it is, Defoe could have easily had his own face used without a hitch, and being the actor he is it would have been far better than the stupid mask.
You mean with makeup and CGI like it was when Spider-man came out--which would have looked, you guessed it, fucking stupid.
Of course, people need to keep in mind that these movies are only "based" on the actual comics and Lee, et al., are not fully consulted....
Gee, I would have never guessed a movie called "Spider-man" is based on the comic book called "Spider-man." If we directly translated absolutely everything from comics, it would completely, 100% suck. These are movies, not comics.
Do you ever see any of them mentioned on Slashdot? Of course not. That's because it would reveal to people that operating systems are not perfect and never will be--and the fact that this is the first Slashdot "vulnerability" article on Windows in quite a while now is a feat considering Windows' massive marketshare and usage. I'm sure the editor was just dying to get it posted since it's been a little while. Meanwhile, the Linuxsecurity site shows that Linux distros have multiple security advisories every week.
Point? No point other than to point it out. No problem with Slashdot reporting these things, but pretending there's no agenda behind it--especially considering Slashdot is owned by a Linux company for whom it is in the best interest of to post "news stories" that happen to dump on competitors--is being purposely naive.
WinFS isn't a "new file system." It's a service on top of NTFS. In addition, as pointed out elsewhere in this discussion, it will be in Longhorn and simply won't work for network shares (big deal). I wouldn't be surprised if it was a feature added in a service pack anyway.
The summary says "already delayed" even though Longhorn has never had an official release date, ever. They were targetting late 2005, then switched to early 2006. Gasp. But on Slashdot, that translates to "vaporware," as I've actually heard some people calling it.
All the vitriol toward this thing is really, really funny. Meanwhile, the technology is amazing, and if you've been following the MSDN videos you'd see the very, very cool stuff they're doing, and you can't help but wonder what Linux desktops will offer in response (or OS X for that matter, though OS X has a leg up in so many other areas I doubt Apple really gives much of a crap about Longhorn).
Capitalism is about succeeding as much as you can. If your product becomes so great that it controls the market, that is a success. Remember that being a monopoly is not illegal. It is abuse of that monopoly.
Sorry, it's simple capitalism to want to be the most successful you can be--if you control the market, all the better.
Meanwhile, I'm sure the artists who rented the studio and spent a month recording the music don't find the joke so funny. If Slashdot was made up of musicians instead of programmers, the opinion of this whole website would be completely different.
As it is, everyone thinks they're fighting for artists when they don't know any and have never asked them if they wanted the "help."
Record labels would LOVE if everyone just bought most of everything. As it is, do you realize how many unsuccessful bands put out unsuccessful records? The industry loses millions of dollars on music that they decided to give a shot.
Apparently, you think record labels for some reason want you to buy only certain artists. They would love if you were buying all the other stuff they're putting out as well--IT'S CALLED MAKING MONEY. But you want to put forth some sort of conspiracy theory that just makes you look hair-brained.
Geez louise! That's exactly the problem with CD distribution in the first place! They still want me to believe I need to spend over $ 16 bucks on a disc that I know damn well cost them only $ 0.40 to manufacture and distro.
The cost of an album isn't just the cost to press a CD.
Everything from the studios you rent, the mixers you hire, their assistants, the mastering studio, their employees, the tools you buy, the gear, the software, the marketing, the music videos, the airfare to interviews and so forth, etc. I could go on and on. There are a LOT of people involved in the making of a successful album.
Slashdot Mirror
After all, Linux never has viruses, worms, or exploits. No security flaws whatsoever.
Never mind Gentoo, Gnome, Debian, and GNU all being hacked within the span of six months. Linux would never be targetted. Let's just randomly suggest to people that they give up all their software, hardware support, and so on and just "try Linux," because setting up Linux is always as easy as telling them to. Who knows why entire doc HOWTO sites are set up for it.
First off, the summary:
Suggestion: make good CDs, and maybe I'll buy the whole thing.
I'm sick of pointing this out--kids today LOVE the music coming out. The fogies at Slashdot think that their niche opinion represent the majority. Today's computer users aren't downloading music because they don't like the whole albums--they're downloading because it's free and available.
Well, considering that the RIAA still hasn't figured out that the ridiculous prices CDs sell for is one of the major reasons why illegal filesharing became so popular in the first place, I'm somehow not surprised that they don't realize this point, either.
Same thing. Illegal piracy isn't popular because of "ridiculous prices." It's popular because it's convenient and everywhere, and it lets you rip off albums for free. They RAR up whole band discographies now and stick 'em up on eMule.
Slashdot wants you to believe that piracy is justified because CDs are overpriced (they're $12.99 at my store...that money covers a lot more than the pressing of the CD), that the RIAA is somehow bad for going after copyright infringers (which is exactly what Slashdotters were saying they should do when Napster was being sued), and that they somehow rip off artists even though artists willingly sign their contracts, shit on gold toilets, and never asked you for your "help" in ripping them off.
The anti-RIAA propoganda around this place is so annoying. Look at the headline--raising the price of downloads by a dollar is suddenly a "nasty easter egg." Slashdotters think their niche opinions represent the majority. You guys need to get off this site and see the rest of the world. ADMIT THE TRUTH--those millions of traders aren't using Kazaa to "sample" albums, they're not using it because they have some sort of righteous opposition to something called the "RIAA"--they're using Kazaa to download music without paying for it. People have yet to offer a valid legal or moral justification for ripping artists off.
But go ahead and post another anti-RIAA article, then after that another anti-Microsoft article. Recycle, repeat.
I agree completely. I don't understand how people can proudly display their desktop screenshots that are rife with dingy gray, ugly fonts that are a little too large and rife with very bad rendering (numbers seem to be a big problem, as well as Ws and other characters), and so on.
Here comes the part where people direct me to kde-look.org, which is like one big storinghouse for completely unusuable theme rejects that are meant only for making great screenshots but not for staring at all day on a screen.
This is why I prefer GNOME--extremely simple and clean. It's easy to look at, particularly for extended periods of time (not to mention that it's more professional to have an Applications and an Actions menu, instead of a big, goofy, giant "K").
Of course, I'd prefer we finally get rid of "start menus," taskbars, integrated net/filesystem browsers, etc. It's like people assume because it was all in Windows 98, it's a-okay to use it. Let's rip off everything in Windows 98-era GUIs, then criticize the company we stole them from and say we surpassed them!
Your post ignores the point that Linux desktops are missing a lot of functionality and ease of use that Windows has--drivers, binary installation/uninstallation, setting up shared printers (thanks, Eric Raymond), etc.
It's not that people want to use Windows, they just want to use something easy. Users aren't like the niche world of Slashdot, where the OS you use is like a holy religion you follow--people don't give a shit that they're using "Windows." Most people don't even know what version of Windows they're using, and they don't even pay attention to the bootup screen that says "Windows XP."
Together with a recent article on GNOME, it's become clear that the Linux desktop has all but surpassed proprietary alternatives.
Uh, no...no, it hasn't. Not one bit.
The day someone can come home and stick in a CD and install a printer driver for their new HP Laserjet is the day Linux will ever even come close to OS X or Windows. Not to mention all the hundreds of interface inconsistencies in KDE and GNOME. Why are their "More Programs" subgroups on the K menu? Why are their "System," "Control Center," and "Preferences" subgroups when those are redundant? I mean, I could go on and on and on and on...maybe when Linux someday gets a desktop binary installation/uninstallation API instead of relying on the godawful package managers out there.
there are more people looking at the code, so it is less likely that bugs slip through
People always say that, as if there are thousands of guys sitting down doing nothing but "looking at code" all the time. I'm sure a few devs will examine their code for bugs when they can, but this whole thousand-eyes myth is simply that. I've never even bothered poring through the Linux kernel source, and I imagine few here at Slashdot have except for a few casual curious glimpses now and then, but I'm talking about actually sitting down and looking through it. Really, it's only the kernel dev guys who do that. Along those lines, nobody sits down poring through KDE code or anything else. The only people who are ever interested in looking through the code are the developers who are writing it.
Not to mention that OSS has plenty of flaws and bugs all the time, in varying degrees in comparison to, say, Windows. It's a nice hypothetical idea, but in reality lots of things slip through all the time.
But didn't you just prove his point? When the government really cares about security--i.e., a "nuclear weapon command centre"--they're not going to open up the code, because in that case security through obscurity works.
It's time to realize it's just to different approaches to the same coin, each with advantages. Both have inherent security flaws in them, to varying degrees.
I expect the usual defensive responses to this article. Hell, the summary itself was biased--"usual FUD." Heaven forbid someone outside the little niche world of Slashdot (i.e., the real world) raise security concerns about Linux, like OSS is some sort of unstoppable secure force. Hell, I just visited Gentoo.org and there are things like remote buffer exploits in MPlayer that allow arbitrary code to be run. Things like that never get mentioned on Slashdot, though.
Check out LinuxSecurity's security advisories for weekly Linux distro security advisories--all the buffer overflows and exploits you thought only Windows had. And let's not forget the hacking of GNOME, Debian, Gentoo, and GNU (twice!).
All I'm saying is it's stupid to get all reactive over someone just questioning the 100% secure reputation that OSS is given by fanboys. In the real world, they do that.
That's not "eye candy." That is talking about the hardware acceleration and vector scaling features of Longhorn. It will scale back if your hardware can't handle all of it. Obviously there will be visual cues, but that's not what I was referring to. My point still stands--I didn't refer to any eye candy.
I didn't list any eye candy.
* Replacement of Win32 with .NET, even explorer.exe is running as managed code in the leaked betas. I can't even begin to list the advantages of this. .NET is great, and with Mono making great strides in the language specification, any language will be able to compile intermediate .NET code, and code from different languages will operate together without a care.
.NET compiler.
* Avalon--presentation system that is completely hardware-accelerated and vector-based. One video showed two Notepads rotating around while still completely usable at the same time a video played in Media Player. Old apps will be compatible.
* XAML and other technologies--I've said it before, but it was just such a cool example. During an MSDN video (freely available at the site), the dev used Win32 Emacs to write a 10-15 XAML app that let him update his blog, complete with resized vector graphics and a video of moving clouds looping on the background of the window, all using the command-line
* WinFS will still exist. They're just cutting a few features that will probably be re-introduced in a service pack anyway. WinFS is incredibly exciting--one WinFS dev went to the command line and did a query for certain employees within the last week, and it came up in less than a second. No more brute-force searching. Also, no file drives. And yet, they're retaining folder and drive structures in case you want to operate that way.
* Aero--this is their top-secret interface yet to be unvieled. See, Longhorn has multiple tiers of visual operation. If you can't handle the effects, it scales back to a lesser tier, going all the way down to an unaccelerated 2D inteface like that of Windows 2000. Aero is the top tier and is supposed to be, according to them, "photorealistic" and will be a new interface for Windows taking advantage of 3D acceleration. They said they don't want to reveal any of it until release because they fear it will be ripped off by competitors (a fair judgment considering all the ripped-off Start menus and taskbars on standard Linux desktops...).
* Christ, man, there's more, but I'll get accused of being a Microsoftie even more than the trolls already do, so I'll stop.
Says the Linux guy running KDE with a taskbar, Start menu, sidepanel, similar print dialog, integrated net browser/file browser, etc.
:P
Innovating the old-fashioned Linux way--ripping things off then criticizing the company that came up with the ideas.
Why would popularity in the server market have anything to do with availability of an Office product? And what "popularity of Linux in the next 2 years?" KDE and GNOME aren't going to make a dent in Longhorn, not in their current mindsets.
Not only that, but installers are XML scriptable. You can even custom script your own Windows installations, leaving in or out exactly what you want. OEMs are definitely going to use it, as well as sysadmins who want total control over what gets installed and set up.
This info has been out for a while, but it doesn't surprise me most Slashdotters don't know about it because whenever I submitted links to Slashdot when the articles came out at Winsupersite, they were rejected in favor of "New M$ Hole!!" rubbish.
You're clearly a comic fanboy who things every adaptation should be direct one-to-one.
I really hope they listened to Mr. Lee on this one. He's sorta the guy behind spidey, and he had some sound advice on how the first movie coulda been a bit better. His argument as to the necessity of Peter Parker "making" his web solution and shooter mechanism made for some good sense
Uh, no, he agreed that it was better for the movie that shooting webs was part of his genetic mutation. Why?
Because it would have been fucking stupid. If all the sudden he's able to make super-industrial-strength web shooter complete with reloadable cartridges...in a far-fetched movie, that just pushes it to the realm of stupidity.
and for him to point out that William Defoe was a superb actor and, thus, should have had his face shown while in "Goblin" mode is something the director should have figured out first.
That's just an opinion. Sam Raimi wanted to use the goblin mask. Big fucking deal. We got plenty of William's face, particularly in the schizo scenes.
With makeup and CGI like it is, Defoe could have easily had his own face used without a hitch, and being the actor he is it would have been far better than the stupid mask.
You mean with makeup and CGI like it was when Spider-man came out--which would have looked, you guessed it, fucking stupid.
Of course, people need to keep in mind that these movies are only "based" on the actual comics and Lee, et al., are not fully consulted....
Gee, I would have never guessed a movie called "Spider-man" is based on the comic book called "Spider-man." If we directly translated absolutely everything from comics, it would completely, 100% suck. These are movies, not comics.
Here is a list of WEEKLY security vulnerabilities in all Linux distributions.
Do you ever see any of them mentioned on Slashdot? Of course not. That's because it would reveal to people that operating systems are not perfect and never will be--and the fact that this is the first Slashdot "vulnerability" article on Windows in quite a while now is a feat considering Windows' massive marketshare and usage. I'm sure the editor was just dying to get it posted since it's been a little while. Meanwhile, the Linuxsecurity site shows that Linux distros have multiple security advisories every week.
Point? No point other than to point it out. No problem with Slashdot reporting these things, but pretending there's no agenda behind it--especially considering Slashdot is owned by a Linux company for whom it is in the best interest of to post "news stories" that happen to dump on competitors--is being purposely naive.
WinFS isn't a "new file system." It's a service on top of NTFS. In addition, as pointed out elsewhere in this discussion, it will be in Longhorn and simply won't work for network shares (big deal). I wouldn't be surprised if it was a feature added in a service pack anyway.
The summary says "already delayed" even though Longhorn has never had an official release date, ever. They were targetting late 2005, then switched to early 2006. Gasp. But on Slashdot, that translates to "vaporware," as I've actually heard some people calling it.
All the vitriol toward this thing is really, really funny. Meanwhile, the technology is amazing, and if you've been following the MSDN videos you'd see the very, very cool stuff they're doing, and you can't help but wonder what Linux desktops will offer in response (or OS X for that matter, though OS X has a leg up in so many other areas I doubt Apple really gives much of a crap about Longhorn).
Capitalism is about succeeding as much as you can. If your product becomes so great that it controls the market, that is a success. Remember that being a monopoly is not illegal. It is abuse of that monopoly.
Sorry, it's simple capitalism to want to be the most successful you can be--if you control the market, all the better.
Last I checked, Outkast wasn't having trouble paying their bills.
Well last I heard from Slashdot, artists were supposed to be getting ripped off or something and not getting paid. Are you telling me that's not true?
Uh, they've made singles available for decades.
Except that piracy is wrong and nobody here would ever do that. Right? :P
Meanwhile, I'm sure the artists who rented the studio and spent a month recording the music don't find the joke so funny. If Slashdot was made up of musicians instead of programmers, the opinion of this whole website would be completely different.
As it is, everyone thinks they're fighting for artists when they don't know any and have never asked them if they wanted the "help."
Record labels would LOVE if everyone just bought most of everything. As it is, do you realize how many unsuccessful bands put out unsuccessful records? The industry loses millions of dollars on music that they decided to give a shot.
Apparently, you think record labels for some reason want you to buy only certain artists. They would love if you were buying all the other stuff they're putting out as well--IT'S CALLED MAKING MONEY. But you want to put forth some sort of conspiracy theory that just makes you look hair-brained.
Geez louise! That's exactly the problem with CD distribution in the first place! They still want me to believe I need to spend over $ 16 bucks on a disc that I know damn well cost them only $ 0.40 to manufacture and distro.
The cost of an album isn't just the cost to press a CD.
Everything from the studios you rent, the mixers you hire, their assistants, the mastering studio, their employees, the tools you buy, the gear, the software, the marketing, the music videos, the airfare to interviews and so forth, etc. I could go on and on. There are a LOT of people involved in the making of a successful album.
Have you heard this new technology that lets you find out about albums before you purchase them? I hear tell that they're called MUSIC REVIEWS.