Again, I can agree or disagree with their decision but it is their choice to make.Most reasonable people could come up with a list of the types of content they feel should be banned; when governments get involved then it becomes censorship, even if we agree with what is banned.
But you'll notice that what's in the news is not a law forcing Facebook to ban some content, but Facebook freely agreeing to do so. So it's not censorship.
I agree it is not censorship since it was not a government passing a law requiring them to do so. The underlying law making hate speech illegal, which is censorship; even if you agree with its intent.
Facebook is not a government entity and thus is free to ban whatever they want;
I did not say otherwise. But you implied they were only banning content based on legal obligations. This is obviously false.
I did not mean to imply they were only banning due to legal obligations; merely that FB and other private companies can ban based on any criteria they chose since they are private companies.
even if it is a stupid decision it's not an free speech issue.
Which is the stupid decision? Banning legal content to please some prudes or agreeing to ban terrorist recruitment campaigns? It seems to me people have a very twisted sense of priorities.
Again, I can agree or disagree with their decision but it is their choice to make.Most reasonable people could come up with a list of the types of content they feel should be banned; when governments get involved then it becomes censorship, even if we agree with what is banned.
Lower margins on a mass-market vehicle means there isn't enough money to pay the electrical bill for the lifetime of the vehicle.
Are people really getting worked up over basic and obvious economic decisions?
I know two people who own Teslas, and both of them bought the in-home charger regardless of the availability of "free" charging. Topping up costs way less than a tank of gas, and they don't feel like wasting time at the station.
The only reason Tesla could offer free charging in the first place is because the electricity costs so much less than gasoline. Their "free" fillup simply was not a large value to begin with---except for the convenience it offered on long trips.
It was meant primarily to be free charging for trips when yo can't charge at home; although some Tesla owners use it as a regular charging station. That works while the concentration of Teslas is low so charging stations tend to be available. Put a significant number of Model 3's on the road and all of a sudden the free charging becomes "feee if space is available" and if Model 3 owners buy the package they no doubt will feel they are entitled to use them on a regal basis; the end result will be a lot of angry owners until tesla builds out a significant number of chargers which can get expensive.
So why are Gustave Courbet's famous painting and others being banned by Facebook? From what you said publishing the painting is just fine and it's the imminent action that may warrant the police to act. Whoops, said action, lying on a bed, happened in the 19th century so it's not imminent at all, and certainly not illegal. So really, why censor this painting?
Facebook is not a government entity and thus is free to ban whatever they want; even if it is a stupid decision it's not an free speech issue.
Conservatives as well, it's just a different source for the butthurt.
Haven't seen very many conservatives lining up over the last 20 years pushing for limiting speech. Progressives on the other hand? Lots of them pushing for it. Especially on university campuses.
Given the complaints against having some books in libraries, religious displays that aren't the traditional Judeo-Christian, etc. I'd say there certainly is butthurt on their side as well; only the focus of their butthurt is different. I've found some people on both sides are more than willing to support free speech as long it says what they want it to say but have a surprising lack of tolerance for a differing view. I find that wrong no matter which side of the fence takes that position. Critical thinking and good decision making requires hearing various points of view, not just those that agree with yours.
In the US at Ieast I would characterize free speech as an absence of governmental prior restraint. Freedom of speech does not imply freedom from consequences. You can say you will do X and be arrested to prevent you from actually doing X, but it is the action or potential action that is being prevented, not the speech. I agree it is a hard line to draw and clearly society can determine where it draws the line; and not everyone will agree on where the line is drawn. Private organizations have no obligation to allow unfettered access to their property and can draw the line wherever they choose; others can then vote with their feet and take their business where the policies are more to their liking.
a)incites violence or hate against group of people or an individual due their affiliation to some race, nation, nationality, skin color, ethnic group, origin or religion,
How do you define hate? If someone points out issues with say the Church of Scientology that casts them in a bad light does that qualify as hate speech? Will companies throw in the towel and simply remove anything with > X complaints giving in to astroturfing hate complaints as a way to stifle legitimate criticism? As with many ideas, the theory may turn out to be far better than the practice
I don't think deals have any legal relevance, should a judge choose to disregard them.
I suspect Snowdon would expect a judge to disregard any deal, even were he able to negotiate one. At least, one better than "confess everything, destroy all copies, denounce your supporters and we'll give you Life not demand a death penalty".
He could cut a deal with the prosecutors who could bring lower level charges that have much smaller penalties; rather than charge him with crimes that carry much harsher penalties. In that case, even if a judge ignores any deals Snowden would only be facing the penalties form lesser charges.
If DRM prevents copying things, it makes them more like physical objects, and that means the providers shouldn't be able to prevent resale of items, because the argument that "you can't prove you no longer have it" becomes moot - it was DRM'd, right? If the ownership transfers, you no longer have access.
If the item is not DRM'd, the argument above becomes somewhat valid and preventing resale would make sense.
You can use it as a chance to make consumers happy and incentivize not doing DRM.
I agree. As long as the rights holder can be assured someone isn't simply selling the electronic version and still using it then the doctrine of first sale should apply. Unfortunately allowing that means even more DRM or the use of special add ons to the original purchaser, so as games do, that are hard or impossible to transfer to another user. Games could even tie everything to a serial number so when person A sells the game to B as soon as B signs in with the serial everything transfer to them for A's account.
People should just switch to Google Fiber. They don't have data caps and the bandwidth is fairly high.
True, but their pricing is roughly inline wit cable's prices. AFAICT they no longer offer the $300 lifetime unlimited lower speed class of service, which would have been a good deal for many users.
AT&T already announced caps for DSL and U-Verse the other day. So, you are right, except it looks to be already decided. They are just releasing the info every couple of days so we wont notice. Mooooo
It's a natural response to the threat of cost cutting. If they lose subscribers to the TV product they will look to makeup the revenue from broadband users. The Death Star's UVerse service already lifts the cap for no additional charge, beyond the cable fees, if you subscribe to the TV product as well as broadband. They have no desire to become a simple dumb pipe.
My guess is on Wendy's. But the real trick will be how to make the drive-through person obsolete. Either through an app that produces a QR code that you scan - or a drive up touch screen - or something.
Why doe that person have to be at the store? Link multiple stores together to a central call center that then transmits the order to the proper store.
I would be with you if I was on that jury for the case you give as an example, but what about if it was someone saying they were financially harmed because their employer-required FitBit keeps saying they're pushing their heart rate dangerously high or not high enough?
That would be different, IMHO. If someone is using the data, other than the person wearing the FitBit, to make recommendations or levy use / target requirements on an employee then they are accepting legal responsibility for any adverse outcomes.
(The best solution would be to flat-out forbid employers from requiring these things, but given that if they're even vaguely accurate and reliable then they may be already a violation of medical privacy laws... The question may really be one of who actually gets to take it to court.)
I agree. Using a consumer device for medical decisions is clearly not a good practice. It's one thing to make it voluntary but requiring it steps, again IMHO, into the realm of medical advice and subject to privacy laws such as HIPAA and needs to be treated as such.
Right... Companies shouldn't be held accountable just because they made a crap product that advertises functionality that it doesn't have. It's all those idiot users' fault for believing that consumer protection laws should require a product to do what is advertised.
FitBit and others did not claim to be medical devices but rather a way to keep track of your activity as part of a wellness regime. Now, a paid study finds that they are not as accurate as medical devices and somehow the company is defrauding the consumer? I have a number of issues with FitBit including their desire to have me send them my exercise information rather than just load it into the app and they are itchy and uncomfortable. It would be nice to see the raw data on which the conclusions are based to see what "up to 20 beats" really means and how accurate FitBit is in various situations.
I would expect if someone is undergoing a severe exercise regimen the would carefully research the tools they use to track vital signs to ensure their safety. If I were on a jury and someone said "I was injured because my FitBit didn't tell me my heartbeat was too high while I did this extreme workout..." I'd respond with a "Sorry, but the legal system can't fix stupid, but mother nature can and did" judgement.
Part of the problem is we expect computers to be precise and accurate and they often are not, and when they aren't people get upset instead of adjusting their expectations.
In some cases local laws mandate a longer warranty period which adds to the warranty costs and thus prices are raised.
Agreed, but in most countries where this has happened the legally mandated warranty is minimal and quite frankly when it comes to electronics pretty much all companies offer something close to or exceeding this anyway unless they are also in the "value adding" business of selling you insurance on top of their shit products.
It really depends own location; in general that is true. The EU has a longer mandated warranty period for some items and thus they pay more to cover those added costs.
That makes sense because the company you bought it from in the US may be a separate subsidiary from the one overseas and thus the overseas one is not liable for the warranty and doesn't want to absorb warranty costs for an item they did not sell. Not all companies do that, some offer world wide warranties.
No it was a supply chain issue. There was always a world-wide warranty on the lens but the process is the same as it is with most companies; the device needs to come back through the local distribution chain. A chain which is built on solid relationships between vendor - distributor - seller - customer, which completely breaks down when the customer needs to talk to someone else.
I really wouldn't consider that to be a world wide warranty if you have to return it to the region purchase for warranty work; to me a worldwide warranty is one where you can get warranty service anywhere there is a repair facility regardless of where you purchased the item. Apple does that for example.
All of which are costs factored int the price, and if the consumer has more rights in B than in A, items generally cost more in B to compensate for the extra costs. As for the store, a swap,means one less item to sell which also has a cost of a potential lost sale. TNSTAAFL
Agreed, all the costs are factored in, including the cost of inefficiency. That's ultimately what has changed by a lot of these regulations. It just moves the process back into the most efficient path, and the additional cost is offset by the increased efficiency of having an existing contractual relationship, something which a customer does not have with a distributor or vendor.
Simple example:
- RMAing a Seagate HDD in the USA involved a call to the distribution centre, filing out paperwork, having the drive delivered to the distribution centre, paying a service fee, being without the drive for 6 weeks, and then having it delivered back.
- RMAing a Seagate HDD in Australia involved going to the store I got it from with receipt in hand and having it exchanged. The store then went through the same process, except back when I worked at the store instead of manually moving things around and paying a service charge, and filling out paperwork we would: Scan the barcode on the drive and throw it in a pile. At the end of the month run an RMA report with a click of a button. Return RMA equipment in bulk, regardless if it was a customer returned or defect on arrival or damaged during shipping, and the service cost to the distributor was the same as was the shipping costs regardless if we had customer defects or not.
There's no such thing as a free lunch. But we don't need to make that sandwich in the most expensive and labour intensive way either.
It may be more efficient for the buyer but not for the seller. In your first case Seagate has no added cost beyond answering a phone call and receiving and repairing the item. In the second case both the store and manufacturer have the added costs of handling the item in their supply chain from receipt of item from customer at store until on the receiving dock at the repair center. The cost different may be negligible but depending on the quantities can get expensive; however I really doubt ei
While such a law is appealing it ads to the initial,purchase price as manufacturers and retailers need to factor those costs into the price.
Not the case. For most of the products an existing manufacturer warranty applies anyway.
In some cases local laws mandate a longer warranty period which adds to the warranty costs and thus prices are raised.
The problem with that is the manufacturer may have no or little presence in the country in which you currently live. Case in point I had to return a camera lens I bought in the USA after I moved overseas. The store wanted nothing to do with me so I eventually managed to get it FedEx'd to the company in Japan and they sent me a new one.
That makes sense because the company you bought it from in the US may be a separate subsidiary from the one overseas and thus the overseas one is not liable for the warranty and doesn't want to absorb warranty costs for an item they did not sell. Not all companies do that, some offer world wide warranties.
In countries like Australia the only thing that changes is that the point of sale is responsible for the base warranty. This does not affect cost of returns at all since the mandated minimum warranty is often shorter than what many companies offer anyway. What it does do is move the burden of logistics onto people who can handle the logistics. The cost of a store handling thousands of products, from hundreds of vendors, with existing distribution channels and agreements in place; returning a product dwarfs the cost of a consumer attempting to do the same thing. Bonus points that they normally have one on the shelf and can do an on the spot swap eliminating the "cost" of lost time.
All of which are costs factored int the price, and if the consumer has more rights in B than in A, items generally cost more in B to compensate for the extra costs. As for the store, a swap,means one less item to sell which also has a cost of a potential lost sale. TNSTAAFL
I'm not sure how they can unilaterally do this without revisiting the contract.
If you're on month-to-month service, as opposed to a 12- or 24-month commitment, the provider alters the contract by sending the new terms to you along with your bill. If you pay it without canceling service, you accept the offer of continued service.
And if you have a commitment and they alter the terms you can not accept the change and get out of the commitment for no charge. IIRC some cell phone companies had that happen when they raised a fee a few cents and customers walked away with a phone and no cancellation fee. ART may have had a cap written into the contract, however and simply didn't enforce it.
If Fuck You is why, then why did the previous policy exist?
To keep prices higher. Customers are more willing to buy and less price sensitive if the believe they can still take advantage of a better deal. As a result, they tend to do less price research. Companies, OTOH, know if they drop prices they will not get purchases from their competitors customers who will simply get a price match and sell products for less to boot, thus making less money. Price matching is a way to signal you will not start a price war but will hurt your competitor if they start one. A a result everyone offers price matching and no one cuts prices. Most price matches exclude limited quantities, black Friday's, percent off etc. which allow companies to do promotions without starting price wars.
You should lobby for better consumer protection laws, rather than relying on retailers being good to you.
In the UK you get two weeks to return the item for any reason (including that the price dropped). Beyond that, you have strong protections if it is faulty, such as not having to pay return shipping.
Make it the law.
While such a law is appealing it ads to the initial,purchase price as manufacturers and retailers need to factor those costs into the price.
Much depends on how data is is used and shared. As for Apple losing out that assumes they take Blackberry's stance of "they are not a threat since we rule so why should we do things differently?" R&D is like sex. Just because you don't talk about in public desn't mean you aren't doing in private. Just because Apple isn't rolling out more advanced features doesn't mean they aren't spending on R&D privately. As long as they can react when they see the market and their tech is ready they'll be fine.
Spinning off the episodes in Enterprise where they went through the Tholian Web into an alternate universe were the Federation was evil and the Klingons good guys would have been an interesting series. Star Trek:Renegades had potential as well.
Slashdot Mirror
Again, I can agree or disagree with their decision but it is their choice to make.Most reasonable people could come up with a list of the types of content they feel should be banned; when governments get involved then it becomes censorship, even if we agree with what is banned.
But you'll notice that what's in the news is not a law forcing Facebook to ban some content, but Facebook freely agreeing to do so. So it's not censorship.
I agree it is not censorship since it was not a government passing a law requiring them to do so. The underlying law making hate speech illegal, which is censorship; even if you agree with its intent.
Facebook is not a government entity and thus is free to ban whatever they want;
I did not say otherwise. But you implied they were only banning content based on legal obligations. This is obviously false.
I did not mean to imply they were only banning due to legal obligations; merely that FB and other private companies can ban based on any criteria they chose since they are private companies.
even if it is a stupid decision it's not an free speech issue.
Which is the stupid decision? Banning legal content to please some prudes or agreeing to ban terrorist recruitment campaigns? It seems to me people have a very twisted sense of priorities.
Again, I can agree or disagree with their decision but it is their choice to make.Most reasonable people could come up with a list of the types of content they feel should be banned; when governments get involved then it becomes censorship, even if we agree with what is banned.
Lower margins on a mass-market vehicle means there isn't enough money to pay the electrical bill for the lifetime of the vehicle.
Are people really getting worked up over basic and obvious economic decisions?
I know two people who own Teslas, and both of them bought the in-home charger regardless of the availability of "free" charging. Topping up costs way less than a tank of gas, and they don't feel like wasting time at the station.
The only reason Tesla could offer free charging in the first place is because the electricity costs so much less than gasoline. Their "free" fillup simply was not a large value to begin with---except for the convenience it offered on long trips.
It was meant primarily to be free charging for trips when yo can't charge at home; although some Tesla owners use it as a regular charging station. That works while the concentration of Teslas is low so charging stations tend to be available. Put a significant number of Model 3's on the road and all of a sudden the free charging becomes "feee if space is available" and if Model 3 owners buy the package they no doubt will feel they are entitled to use them on a regal basis; the end result will be a lot of angry owners until tesla builds out a significant number of chargers which can get expensive.
So why are Gustave Courbet's famous painting and others being banned by Facebook? From what you said publishing the painting is just fine and it's the imminent action that may warrant the police to act. Whoops, said action, lying on a bed, happened in the 19th century so it's not imminent at all, and certainly not illegal. So really, why censor this painting?
Facebook is not a government entity and thus is free to ban whatever they want; even if it is a stupid decision it's not an free speech issue.
Conservatives as well, it's just a different source for the butthurt.
Haven't seen very many conservatives lining up over the last 20 years pushing for limiting speech. Progressives on the other hand? Lots of them pushing for it. Especially on university campuses.
Given the complaints against having some books in libraries, religious displays that aren't the traditional Judeo-Christian, etc. I'd say there certainly is butthurt on their side as well; only the focus of their butthurt is different. I've found some people on both sides are more than willing to support free speech as long it says what they want it to say but have a surprising lack of tolerance for a differing view. I find that wrong no matter which side of the fence takes that position. Critical thinking and good decision making requires hearing various points of view, not just those that agree with yours.
In the US at Ieast I would characterize free speech as an absence of governmental prior restraint. Freedom of speech does not imply freedom from consequences. You can say you will do X and be arrested to prevent you from actually doing X, but it is the action or potential action that is being prevented, not the speech. I agree it is a hard line to draw and clearly society can determine where it draws the line; and not everyone will agree on where the line is drawn. Private organizations have no obligation to allow unfettered access to their property and can draw the line wherever they choose; others can then vote with their feet and take their business where the policies are more to their liking.
This policy will make liberals very happy. Anything they don't like will be butthurt .
Conservatives as well, it's just a different source for the butthurt.
a)incites violence or hate against group of people or an individual due their affiliation to some race, nation, nationality, skin color, ethnic group, origin or religion,
How do you define hate? If someone points out issues with say the Church of Scientology that casts them in a bad light does that qualify as hate speech? Will companies throw in the towel and simply remove anything with > X complaints giving in to astroturfing hate complaints as a way to stifle legitimate criticism? As with many ideas, the theory may turn out to be far better than the practice
I don't think deals have any legal relevance, should a judge choose to disregard them.
I suspect Snowdon would expect a judge to disregard any deal, even were he able to negotiate one. At least, one better than "confess everything, destroy all copies, denounce your supporters and we'll give you Life not demand a death penalty".
He could cut a deal with the prosecutors who could bring lower level charges that have much smaller penalties; rather than charge him with crimes that carry much harsher penalties. In that case, even if a judge ignores any deals Snowden would only be facing the penalties form lesser charges.
If DRM prevents copying things, it makes them more like physical objects, and that means the providers shouldn't be able to prevent resale of items, because the argument that "you can't prove you no longer have it" becomes moot - it was DRM'd, right? If the ownership transfers, you no longer have access.
If the item is not DRM'd, the argument above becomes somewhat valid and preventing resale would make sense.
You can use it as a chance to make consumers happy and incentivize not doing DRM.
I agree. As long as the rights holder can be assured someone isn't simply selling the electronic version and still using it then the doctrine of first sale should apply. Unfortunately allowing that means even more DRM or the use of special add ons to the original purchaser, so as games do, that are hard or impossible to transfer to another user. Games could even tie everything to a serial number so when person A sells the game to B as soon as B signs in with the serial everything transfer to them for A's account.
Yeah, then shift the central call centre to India. I can just hear the voice on the other side already.
And reading from a script " Sir, you must first order burger..."
People should just switch to Google Fiber. They don't have data caps and the bandwidth is fairly high.
True, but their pricing is roughly inline wit cable's prices. AFAICT they no longer offer the $300 lifetime unlimited lower speed class of service, which would have been a good deal for many users.
AT&T already announced caps for DSL and U-Verse the other day. So, you are right, except it looks to be already decided. They are just releasing the info every couple of days so we wont notice. Mooooo
It's a natural response to the threat of cost cutting. If they lose subscribers to the TV product they will look to makeup the revenue from broadband users. The Death Star's UVerse service already lifts the cap for no additional charge, beyond the cable fees, if you subscribe to the TV product as well as broadband. They have no desire to become a simple dumb pipe.
Of course I should have known better, what idiot uses Microsoft for ANYTHING????
90% of the user base
My guess is on Wendy's. But the real trick will be how to make the drive-through person obsolete. Either through an app that produces a QR code that you scan - or a drive up touch screen - or something.
Why doe that person have to be at the store? Link multiple stores together to a central call center that then transmits the order to the proper store.
I would be with you if I was on that jury for the case you give as an example, but what about if it was someone saying they were financially harmed because their employer-required FitBit keeps saying they're pushing their heart rate dangerously high or not high enough?
That would be different, IMHO. If someone is using the data, other than the person wearing the FitBit, to make recommendations or levy use / target requirements on an employee then they are accepting legal responsibility for any adverse outcomes.
(The best solution would be to flat-out forbid employers from requiring these things, but given that if they're even vaguely accurate and reliable then they may be already a violation of medical privacy laws... The question may really be one of who actually gets to take it to court.)
I agree. Using a consumer device for medical decisions is clearly not a good practice. It's one thing to make it voluntary but requiring it steps, again IMHO, into the realm of medical advice and subject to privacy laws such as HIPAA and needs to be treated as such.
Right... Companies shouldn't be held accountable just because they made a crap product that advertises functionality that it doesn't have. It's all those idiot users' fault for believing that consumer protection laws should require a product to do what is advertised.
FitBit and others did not claim to be medical devices but rather a way to keep track of your activity as part of a wellness regime. Now, a paid study finds that they are not as accurate as medical devices and somehow the company is defrauding the consumer? I have a number of issues with FitBit including their desire to have me send them my exercise information rather than just load it into the app and they are itchy and uncomfortable. It would be nice to see the raw data on which the conclusions are based to see what "up to 20 beats" really means and how accurate FitBit is in various situations.
I would expect if someone is undergoing a severe exercise regimen the would carefully research the tools they use to track vital signs to ensure their safety. If I were on a jury and someone said "I was injured because my FitBit didn't tell me my heartbeat was too high while I did this extreme workout..." I'd respond with a "Sorry, but the legal system can't fix stupid, but mother nature can and did" judgement.
Part of the problem is we expect computers to be precise and accurate and they often are not, and when they aren't people get upset instead of adjusting their expectations.
In some cases local laws mandate a longer warranty period which adds to the warranty costs and thus prices are raised.
Agreed, but in most countries where this has happened the legally mandated warranty is minimal and quite frankly when it comes to electronics pretty much all companies offer something close to or exceeding this anyway unless they are also in the "value adding" business of selling you insurance on top of their shit products.
It really depends own location; in general that is true. The EU has a longer mandated warranty period for some items and thus they pay more to cover those added costs.
That makes sense because the company you bought it from in the US may be a separate subsidiary from the one overseas and thus the overseas one is not liable for the warranty and doesn't want to absorb warranty costs for an item they did not sell. Not all companies do that, some offer world wide warranties.
No it was a supply chain issue. There was always a world-wide warranty on the lens but the process is the same as it is with most companies; the device needs to come back through the local distribution chain. A chain which is built on solid relationships between vendor - distributor - seller - customer, which completely breaks down when the customer needs to talk to someone else.
I really wouldn't consider that to be a world wide warranty if you have to return it to the region purchase for warranty work; to me a worldwide warranty is one where you can get warranty service anywhere there is a repair facility regardless of where you purchased the item. Apple does that for example.
All of which are costs factored int the price, and if the consumer has more rights in B than in A, items generally cost more in B to compensate for the extra costs. As for the store, a swap ,means one less item to sell which also has a cost of a potential lost sale. TNSTAAFL
Agreed, all the costs are factored in, including the cost of inefficiency. That's ultimately what has changed by a lot of these regulations. It just moves the process back into the most efficient path, and the additional cost is offset by the increased efficiency of having an existing contractual relationship, something which a customer does not have with a distributor or vendor.
Simple example: - RMAing a Seagate HDD in the USA involved a call to the distribution centre, filing out paperwork, having the drive delivered to the distribution centre, paying a service fee, being without the drive for 6 weeks, and then having it delivered back. - RMAing a Seagate HDD in Australia involved going to the store I got it from with receipt in hand and having it exchanged. The store then went through the same process, except back when I worked at the store instead of manually moving things around and paying a service charge, and filling out paperwork we would: Scan the barcode on the drive and throw it in a pile. At the end of the month run an RMA report with a click of a button. Return RMA equipment in bulk, regardless if it was a customer returned or defect on arrival or damaged during shipping, and the service cost to the distributor was the same as was the shipping costs regardless if we had customer defects or not.
There's no such thing as a free lunch. But we don't need to make that sandwich in the most expensive and labour intensive way either.
It may be more efficient for the buyer but not for the seller. In your first case Seagate has no added cost beyond answering a phone call and receiving and repairing the item. In the second case both the store and manufacturer have the added costs of handling the item in their supply chain from receipt of item from customer at store until on the receiving dock at the repair center. The cost different may be negligible but depending on the quantities can get expensive; however I really doubt ei
While such a law is appealing it ads to the initial,purchase price as manufacturers and retailers need to factor those costs into the price.
Not the case. For most of the products an existing manufacturer warranty applies anyway.
In some cases local laws mandate a longer warranty period which adds to the warranty costs and thus prices are raised.
The problem with that is the manufacturer may have no or little presence in the country in which you currently live. Case in point I had to return a camera lens I bought in the USA after I moved overseas. The store wanted nothing to do with me so I eventually managed to get it FedEx'd to the company in Japan and they sent me a new one.
That makes sense because the company you bought it from in the US may be a separate subsidiary from the one overseas and thus the overseas one is not liable for the warranty and doesn't want to absorb warranty costs for an item they did not sell. Not all companies do that, some offer world wide warranties.
In countries like Australia the only thing that changes is that the point of sale is responsible for the base warranty. This does not affect cost of returns at all since the mandated minimum warranty is often shorter than what many companies offer anyway. What it does do is move the burden of logistics onto people who can handle the logistics. The cost of a store handling thousands of products, from hundreds of vendors, with existing distribution channels and agreements in place; returning a product dwarfs the cost of a consumer attempting to do the same thing. Bonus points that they normally have one on the shelf and can do an on the spot swap eliminating the "cost" of lost time.
All of which are costs factored int the price, and if the consumer has more rights in B than in A, items generally cost more in B to compensate for the extra costs. As for the store, a swap ,means one less item to sell which also has a cost of a potential lost sale. TNSTAAFL
I'm not sure how they can unilaterally do this without revisiting the contract.
If you're on month-to-month service, as opposed to a 12- or 24-month commitment, the provider alters the contract by sending the new terms to you along with your bill. If you pay it without canceling service, you accept the offer of continued service.
And if you have a commitment and they alter the terms you can not accept the change and get out of the commitment for no charge. IIRC some cell phone companies had that happen when they raised a fee a few cents and customers walked away with a phone and no cancellation fee. ART may have had a cap written into the contract, however and simply didn't enforce it.
If Fuck You is why, then why did the previous policy exist?
To keep prices higher. Customers are more willing to buy and less price sensitive if the believe they can still take advantage of a better deal. As a result, they tend to do less price research. Companies, OTOH, know if they drop prices they will not get purchases from their competitors customers who will simply get a price match and sell products for less to boot, thus making less money. Price matching is a way to signal you will not start a price war but will hurt your competitor if they start one. A a result everyone offers price matching and no one cuts prices. Most price matches exclude limited quantities, black Friday's, percent off etc. which allow companies to do promotions without starting price wars.
You should lobby for better consumer protection laws, rather than relying on retailers being good to you.
In the UK you get two weeks to return the item for any reason (including that the price dropped). Beyond that, you have strong protections if it is faulty, such as not having to pay return shipping.
Make it the law.
While such a law is appealing it ads to the initial,purchase price as manufacturers and retailers need to factor those costs into the price.
Much depends on how data is is used and shared. As for Apple losing out that assumes they take Blackberry's stance of "they are not a threat since we rule so why should we do things differently?" R&D is like sex. Just because you don't talk about in public desn't mean you aren't doing in private. Just because Apple isn't rolling out more advanced features doesn't mean they aren't spending on R&D privately. As long as they can react when they see the market and their tech is ready they'll be fine.
CBS has a new Star Trek TV series in the works. Based on the new trailer (see below), Axanar looks a lot better in comparison.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXpPweAooeE
Spinning off the episodes in Enterprise where they went through the Tholian Web into an alternate universe were the Federation was evil and the Klingons good guys would have been an interesting series. Star Trek:Renegades had potential as well.
Now if I could just figure out a way to rein those 1000+ Hollerith card decks...