Given the environment of the near monopoly that Live Nation// Ticketmaster has over venues and artists combined with the desire of artists to underprice their tickets I fear it'll be a while before we see any substantive change.
It is unlikely, even in a perfectly competitive market, that there wouldn't both be be a minimum monthly charge
I disagree, even right now, so long as I don't have a phone classified as a corporate phone, I can use data a la carte (granted at a cost far in excess of average cost, but still cheaper than the lowest available plan).
strong preference on the part of customers for fixed monthly rates
Again, I disagree about this as a generality, prepay is popular and economical in other less oligopolistic markets. Further, if blackberry users could pay a la carte for their data, I'm sure most of them would love to since it would cut their $50/month to $3-$4/month even at the bloated current a la carte rates.
The real scam is where companies charge overage rates that are radically out of line with the average cost of delivering bandwidth.
Really? If this happened that often, there would be an outcry, that's why most carriers force people to buy a "virtually" unlimited data plan. I don't think the carriers are making that much over someone who accidentally uses too much data. Most people don't come close to their limits on a plan.
Customers have to play a game to change plans all the time not to gain some marginal advantage or another, but to avoid being sent to the poor house.
They can't change plans too often because of ETF's and hardware subsidies. I in fact have the same plan which I've been renewing since 2003 with verizon since it has slightly better a la carte data charges than anything currently available.
Cell phone operators in the US domestic market live or die based on the principles and availability of price discrimination.
Long story short, if carriers starting charging some flavor of reasonable rates that approximate cost (such as would occur in a perfectly competitive market whereas what the US has more closely approximates an oligopoly) then a majority of the high revenue corporate users who have $50/monthly data plans on their blackberries would all of a sudden be paying [perhaps] $5/month since they use all but a couple megabytes a month.
Further, like with voice, the true cost driver of, virtually any data use, is the maximum available bandwidth (and, to varying extents, the underlying quality of service/latency on the connection). Not all phone calls use the same amount of data but they are billed the same (e.g. if you had a long phone call where you are on hold with silence for a long time, that silence is largely compressed).
The carriers realized that most phone calls use a similar amount of data per minute. Accordingly, they decided that a reasonable and intuitive proxy to charge by bandwidth is to charge by peak or off-peak minute. They understand, like with the blackberry business users, that people have a different demand curve (i.e. they are less cost conscious, on average) during business hours for a variety of reasons.
With data on the other hand, there isn't a good intuitive proxy that makes the industry money to split up bandwidth. If carriers implemented something like peak and off-peak rates per megabyte it would decimate the money they are collecting from blackberry users, their cash cows. In fact, blackberry users are further "discriminated" against in that if they access a blackberry enterprise server, there's typically a surcharge from the carrier despite it not costing the carrier anything additional (verizon is guilty of this). This charge would also disappear with such metered usage.
The telecoms are in a tight spot though I'm not losing any sleep over it. They could get away with what they've been doing with some laughably price discrimination based plans (e.g. ~$20 for 10mb of blackberry data or $20 for 250mb of ipad data) or congress could allow some meaningful wireless carterfone legislation to pass which would eliminate this price discrimination.
Those kids went way too far - they went beyond parody.
I completely agree with that is clearly beyond parody, but the real question is "Can schools punish students for web posts?" not "Can people be punished for [inflammatory] libel?".
In a sense, these kids got off easy. They could have had real legal consequences as opposed to a school suspension.
Bandwidth is measured in throughput, not transfer.
I completely agree though, out of curiosity, I wonder when providers will start offers plans on a reasonable proxy of transfer like currently done with voice, e.g. off peak data, peak data
Perhaps when it is feasible, I believe with 4G, people could pay extra for prioritized data during peak time, etc.
However, right now, it seems, for most things, pricing is more a function of squeezing business/corporate users as a function of providers' varying abilities to take advantage of price discrimination
Market capitalization is only the value of a company's equity and not its debt and is accordingly a function of its capital structure (debt to equity ratio).
Enterprise value is a combination of the market value of the debt and equity of a company. As such, it is not distorted by the capital structure of the company.
Using this less biased measure, Apple has an enterprise value of $200B whereas Microsoft's is $197B
This only works, to varying extents, in the more modern OS's.
For example, the relevant application(s) has to be DPI aware as well as either have additional higher resolution raster based graphics or use something like SVG
... most of my co-worker's (most of whom couldn't even pass the pretty easy test), definitely wouldn't understand that level of "math", much less that logical expression
I agree, small things, added together "add up". Even more strangely, large things "add up" faster. But the way to make such decisions is where one's judgment comes into play...
This is ultimately a judgment call for an individual to make, i.e. if you feel the sum of the small things is larger than the expected value of the value of the "large" things, you can make your decision. In your example, by actually supplying numbers, let's say someone decides to hold onto 6 domains for 10 years when he feels they have limited value (i.e. only "protective" value). That would cost around 6 * 10 * 20 or around $1200 (likely even less when you factor in present value or a deal you'd get from the registrar). Compare that number to what you could lose if someone were to steal customers from you. If you feel that $1200 is a reasonable price to pay for protection, then I'd suggest paying it.
Merely employing the cliche of "small things add up" is little more than a "FUD" approach.
I completely appreciate your response -- my suggestion is clearly
inappropriate in the poster's question but...
Even though the poster claims this domain was not used, merely the ownership of it
(at nominal cost might I add) protected his business which he only
realized in retrospect. That, I believe is the take home to
readers of this forum in this situation -- not what to do if you make
this blunder.
As little as a single lost sale as a result of this gaffe on the
poster's part, could far exceed the cost of renewing the domain for a
decade.
(1) credit monitoring
-credit bureaus like this because they make significant money from it and it doesn't stop people from actually running your report which they also obviously make money from
-requires the user to take action if something untoward happens
-available anywhere
(2) credit freeze
-available in parts of the country and varying costs, but all are lower than credit monitoring
-much more effective, i've had my credit frozen for years (since the day the law passed in NYS)
-you get a password and no one can do so much as look at your credit report unless you specifically authorize it
-this is not advertised and the credit bureaus seem to, sometimes, illegally deny requests for freezes to dissuade people from getting them
...I'd imagine basic rules of economics and capitalism are at work here, i.e.
If these things really cost so much less, someone would produce them and sell them for less. While you can get a netbook for a few hundred dollars, keep in mind that it is using largely shared/similar hardware and is not required to be ultra small to the extent that is can be worn. The degree of precision engineering to make a high quality hearing aid is understandably not insignificant.
You could walk around with a netbook, a microphone, and a pair of headphones if you like:)
... this offers some incentive to doctors to return/make phone calls in more competitive markets like Manhattan where doctors seldom spend more than 3-4 minutes in the diagnostic room and won't return calls
perhaps these insurance companies might even establish a reasonable co-pay and fee for such a service (can I dream?)
Stop chanting the "privatization is good" mantra--some of those who grew up in the Reagan era (such as myself) and were diehard conservatives (such as myself) understand that sometimes, private industry is NOT the answer.
While on the face your statement makes sense, are these organizations truly private in a classic sense? --> No, these organizations have exceptions from anti-trust law and are also highly regulated. Further, the barriers to entry in this market are huge.
Contrary to the propaganda spewed by republicans, other first world countries with "socialized" medicine are considerably more "privatized" than our backwards country.
After all, why is it that in many of these countries, individuals have more choices for insurance than people in the US?
Slashdot Mirror
...I'd imagine many people who bought this in the past few days aren't standard gamers who clean their machines often.
Accordingly, I bet the people experiencing crashes would experience crashes with virtually any modern 3D game, not just SC2.
Few games exist like SC2 which bring non-gamers back into the gaming market.
I agree, but it's typically worst for sellers.
// Ticketmaster has over venues and artists combined with the desire of artists to underprice their tickets I fear it'll be a while before we see any substantive change.
Given the environment of the near monopoly that Live Nation
I'd check out this new yorker article (subscription required) for a good review of the poor economic situation.
I disagree, even right now, so long as I don't have a phone classified as a corporate phone, I can use data a la carte (granted at a cost far in excess of average cost, but still cheaper than the lowest available plan).
Again, I disagree about this as a generality, prepay is popular and economical in other less oligopolistic markets. Further, if blackberry users could pay a la carte for their data, I'm sure most of them would love to since it would cut their $50/month to $3-$4/month even at the bloated current a la carte rates.
Really? If this happened that often, there would be an outcry, that's why most carriers force people to buy a "virtually" unlimited data plan. I don't think the carriers are making that much over someone who accidentally uses too much data. Most people don't come close to their limits on a plan.
They can't change plans too often because of ETF's and hardware subsidies. I in fact have the same plan which I've been renewing since 2003 with verizon since it has slightly better a la carte data charges than anything currently available.
Cell phone operators in the US domestic market live or die based on the principles and availability of price discrimination.
:)
Long story short, if carriers starting charging some flavor of reasonable rates that approximate cost (such as would occur in a perfectly competitive market whereas what the US has more closely approximates an oligopoly) then a majority of the high revenue corporate users who have $50/monthly data plans on their blackberries would all of a sudden be paying [perhaps] $5/month since they use all but a couple megabytes a month.
Further, like with voice, the true cost driver of, virtually any data use, is the maximum available bandwidth (and, to varying extents, the underlying quality of service/latency on the connection). Not all phone calls use the same amount of data but they are billed the same (e.g. if you had a long phone call where you are on hold with silence for a long time, that silence is largely compressed).
The carriers realized that most phone calls use a similar amount of data per minute. Accordingly, they decided that a reasonable and intuitive proxy to charge by bandwidth is to charge by peak or off-peak minute. They understand, like with the blackberry business users, that people have a different demand curve (i.e. they are less cost conscious, on average) during business hours for a variety of reasons.
With data on the other hand, there isn't a good intuitive proxy that makes the industry money to split up bandwidth. If carriers implemented something like peak and off-peak rates per megabyte it would decimate the money they are collecting from blackberry users, their cash cows. In fact, blackberry users are further "discriminated" against in that if they access a blackberry enterprise server, there's typically a surcharge from the carrier despite it not costing the carrier anything additional (verizon is guilty of this). This charge would also disappear with such metered usage.
The telecoms are in a tight spot though I'm not losing any sleep over it. They could get away with what they've been doing with some laughably price discrimination based plans (e.g. ~$20 for 10mb of blackberry data or $20 for 250mb of ipad data) or congress could allow some meaningful wireless carterfone legislation to pass which would eliminate this price discrimination.
I doubt the lobbyists would allow that
I completely agree with that is clearly beyond parody, but the real question is "Can schools punish students for web posts?" not "Can people be punished for [inflammatory] libel?".
In a sense, these kids got off easy. They could have had real legal consequences as opposed to a school suspension.
I completely agree though, out of curiosity, I wonder when providers will start offers plans on a reasonable proxy of transfer like currently done with voice, e.g. off peak data, peak data
Perhaps when it is feasible, I believe with 4G, people could pay extra for prioritized data during peak time, etc.
However, right now, it seems, for most things, pricing is more a function of squeezing business/corporate users as a function of providers' varying abilities to take advantage of price discrimination
Market capitalization is only the value of a company's equity and not its debt and is accordingly a function of its capital structure (debt to equity ratio).
Enterprise value is a combination of the market value of the debt and equity of a company. As such, it is not distorted by the capital structure of the company.
Using this less biased measure, Apple has an enterprise value of $200B whereas Microsoft's is $197B
out of curiosity, have you ever tried putting it on a small ram disk?
I've found on my older slower computer, it loads much faster that way (that being said, it does have the hassles of being on a volatile disk)
...Why not have some test samples for in a more practical situation?
All of the samples on the site clearly can't "fool" anyone
Do you work for a nonprofit or accounting firm by any chance? :)
This only works, to varying extents, in the more modern OS's.
For example, the relevant application(s) has to be DPI aware as well as either have additional higher resolution raster based graphics or use something like SVG
... most of my co-worker's (most of whom couldn't even pass the pretty easy test), definitely wouldn't understand that level of "math", much less that logical expression
... have single-handedly invented the internet because everyone Al Gore did that :)
I agree, small things, added together "add up". Even more strangely, large things "add up" faster. But the way to make such decisions is where one's judgment comes into play...
This is ultimately a judgment call for an individual to make, i.e. if you feel the sum of the small things is larger than the expected value of the value of the "large" things, you can make your decision. In your example, by actually supplying numbers, let's say someone decides to hold onto 6 domains for 10 years when he feels they have limited value (i.e. only "protective" value). That would cost around 6 * 10 * 20 or around $1200 (likely even less when you factor in present value or a deal you'd get from the registrar). Compare that number to what you could lose if someone were to steal customers from you. If you feel that $1200 is a reasonable price to pay for protection, then I'd suggest paying it.
Merely employing the cliche of "small things add up" is little more than a "FUD" approach.
I completely appreciate your response -- my suggestion is clearly inappropriate in the poster's question but...
Even though the poster claims this domain was not used, merely the ownership of it (at nominal cost might I add) protected his business which he only realized in retrospect. That, I believe is the take home to readers of this forum in this situation -- not what to do if you make this blunder.
As little as a single lost sale as a result of this gaffe on the poster's part, could far exceed the cost of renewing the domain for a decade.
was there an article besides the several line initial post?
Wouldn't it just be cheaper/easier to just never let even remotely valuable/vulnerable domains expire since it costs so little to keep renewing them?
Mod Parent Up
(1) credit monitoring -credit bureaus like this because they make significant money from it and it doesn't stop people from actually running your report which they also obviously make money from
-requires the user to take action if something untoward happens
-available anywhere
(2) credit freeze -available in parts of the country and varying costs, but all are lower than credit monitoring
-much more effective, i've had my credit frozen for years (since the day the law passed in NYS)
-you get a password and no one can do so much as look at your credit report unless you specifically authorize it
-this is not advertised and the credit bureaus seem to, sometimes, illegally deny requests for freezes to dissuade people from getting them
...I'd imagine basic rules of economics and capitalism are at work here, i.e.
:)
:)
If these things really cost so much less, someone would produce them and sell them for less. While you can get a netbook for a few hundred dollars, keep in mind that it is using largely shared/similar hardware and is not required to be ultra small to the extent that is can be worn. The degree of precision engineering to make a high quality hearing aid is understandably not insignificant.
You could walk around with a netbook, a microphone, and a pair of headphones if you like
It seems there are indeed less expensive models out there that might do the job -- I'd check out http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18519576 and http://www.amazon.com/MDHearingAid-Acoustitone-PRO-Hearing-Aid/dp/B002RH4SN4
Good luck
... this offers some incentive to doctors to return/make phone calls in more competitive markets like Manhattan where doctors seldom spend more than 3-4 minutes in the diagnostic room and won't return calls
perhaps these insurance companies might even establish a reasonable co-pay and fee for such a service (can I dream?)
why does this guy get such a strong voice here?
Stop chanting the "privatization is good" mantra--some of those who grew up in the Reagan era (such as myself) and were diehard conservatives (such as myself) understand that sometimes, private industry is NOT the answer.
While on the face your statement makes sense, are these organizations truly private in a classic sense? --> No, these organizations have exceptions from anti-trust law and are also highly regulated. Further, the barriers to entry in this market are huge.
Contrary to the propaganda spewed by republicans, other first world countries with "socialized" medicine are considerably more "privatized" than our backwards country.
After all, why is it that in many of these countries, individuals have more choices for insurance than people in the US?
Mod parent up
putting aside the ethics of the situation...
any article you want to read on WSJ.com can be read via doing a google news search for it and then clicking on the generated link
such a strategy yields an unpaywalled version of the article