45 miles per day = roughly 11,250 miles per year. At $1.30 per gallon (estimated) that means:
- A normal (non hybrid) sedan that gets 25 mpg will cost $585 a year in gas. - The hybrid (50 mpg) will cost $265 a year in gas
Net savings: about $320 per year
Now, factor in how much a Prius (@ $20K) costs versus a regular compact sedan like a Corolla (@$14K - plus actually gets more like 30MPG) and it would seem that with a $6K difference in price, you'll have to drive the car for about 18 years before you make up that money.
If Mr. Rich Lately walked through the unlocked front door of a bank at midnight, strolled down the stairs, opened the vault (which has no locks) and made off with the life savings of a few thousand people, the bank could not just say "Well it's not our fault, it's illegal to steal, after all."
Why couldn't they? What if they guarded the vault with a sheet of paper accross the door? Two sheets? An inch of steel? Two inches? Where the line is drawn and who draws it is between the manufacturer and the consumer. If I'm not happy with the security you provide, I won't buy your product. Microsoft (appropriately compared to a bank) should just openly say "If your system is hacked because of third party software installed, we take no responsibility." Or, if they actually wanted to be honest, "We make software. It's not perfect. You can lose millions of dollars if you trust us to be unbreakable. We'll do our best to fix problems, but we're not going to take responsibility for security breaches." I read Licenses from small programmers all the time that basically say "this software may completely erase your computer, and I take no responsibility"... I supremely doubt that M$ saying the same would have any real impact on sales, because the fact of the matter is that the quality of the products remain unchanged despite the contents of the EULA.
The hackers are still the criminals. Caveat Emptor is still in effect. I think it's pretty clear that this clause is just to get people to buy more copies of Windows. No question about it.
What about doing what slashdot does [now]... stick banner ads on the free channels? A better comparison (with regard to the business model) is the free web hosts. They'll stick a banner on all of your pages in exchange for no hosting fees.
Perhaps the ad revenues on the handhelds are pretty low (I wouldn't be surprised... you can't "click through" very far) and the model wouldn't fly.
Slashdot's model is much better makes much more sense... just as a previous post suggested... let the consumers pay for that which we consume.
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45 miles per day = roughly 11,250 miles per year.
At $1.30 per gallon (estimated) that means:
- A normal (non hybrid) sedan that gets 25 mpg will cost $585 a year in gas.
- The hybrid (50 mpg) will cost $265 a year in gas
Net savings: about $320 per year
Now, factor in how much a Prius (@ $20K) costs versus a regular compact sedan like a Corolla (@$14K - plus actually gets more like 30MPG) and it would seem that with a $6K difference in price, you'll have to drive the car for about 18 years before you make up that money.
... because Cardinal Law is giving "red hat" a bad name.
bwahahahaha.
Why couldn't they? What if they guarded the vault with a sheet of paper accross the door? Two sheets? An inch of steel? Two inches? Where the line is drawn and who draws it is between the manufacturer and the consumer. If I'm not happy with the security you provide, I won't buy your product. Microsoft (appropriately compared to a bank) should just openly say "If your system is hacked because of third party software installed, we take no responsibility." Or, if they actually wanted to be honest, "We make software. It's not perfect. You can lose millions of dollars if you trust us to be unbreakable. We'll do our best to fix problems, but we're not going to take responsibility for security breaches." I read Licenses from small programmers all the time that basically say "this software may completely erase your computer, and I take no responsibility"... I supremely doubt that M$ saying the same would have any real impact on sales, because the fact of the matter is that the quality of the products remain unchanged despite the contents of the EULA.
The hackers are still the criminals. Caveat Emptor is still in effect. I think it's pretty clear that this clause is just to get people to buy more copies of Windows. No question about it.
What about doing what slashdot does [now]... stick banner ads on the free channels? A better comparison (with regard to the business model) is the free web hosts. They'll stick a banner on all of your pages in exchange for no hosting fees.
Perhaps the ad revenues on the handhelds are pretty low (I wouldn't be surprised... you can't "click through" very far) and the model wouldn't fly.
Slashdot's model is much better makes much more sense... just as a previous post suggested... let the consumers pay for that which we consume.