Yes, the same municipalities and states that pass laws to block new fiber entrants, explicitly to protect the entrenched corporations. "For the good of the people".
In a pure free market, you don't charge based on what people can pay. You charge cost plus. That's the same in Germany as Greece for something provided in Italy. It's the monopoly-thinking that gets "market-based" pricing. And yes, the market is different in different places. The more "pure" the capitalism, the more you move to cost plus, where geography is irrelevant. Since they can't ban every local monopoly, they address the cross-border effects of a local monopoly. If someone in Italy bribes and cajoles the locals for an exclusive car rental business, then they would want to charge monopoly market prices. They would want the person in Greece to buy from them, and would need to charge less for that than the higher prices they get from Germany.
The EU central government can't fix the corruption in Italy, but can ban that discrimination from crossing borders. If there wasn't a monopoly, regardless of how it got there, then the competition would reduce the cost of a car to cost + 10% (or some reasonable return). That price would be the same for Greece and Germany, and would likely be lower than the old Greece price.
My worst experiences with taxis have been where they are most regulated. And I've not had a bad experience where they are less-regulated. The regulations help idiots who get in the first car that stops, without thought or planning. But sane and intelligent humans don't need oppressive legislation to keep them safe from themselves.
It's the legislation that mandates the monopolies enforced by the state. The taxi companies could have better coverage, offer their own apps, and all that, but they refuse to. The legislation causes this by enforcing a monopoly for the bad companies to thrive under.
Nah, just go to a pictograph alphabet. Draw the characters. Easy, simple. I don't know why it isn't used. All my friends use pinyin on QWERTY for input of Chinese characters. But I've never seen one have a draw system. Shouldn't be that hard, the number and types of strokes are pretty consistent. Perhaps it's that Chinese printing is easy, but most don't print. Chinese cursive is inconsistent and confusing.
Would the government need a warrant to compel your mother to turn over all the letters she's sent to you over the years, so they can retro-actively track your location in an attempt to link you to crimes?
I worked for a telco (still do, but outside the US now), and the official policy was to comply, without question, to all court orders (warrants being a subset of court orders). Without a court order, we would be breaking the law (both state and federal) to even confirm Bob Smith was a customer, whether it's the local police, sherrif, state cops, or US President asking. But a court order to turn over records (if any), releases us from from any and all legal liability. It might not be able to stand up in court, but that's not our problem.
I've never lived in Comcast's or TWC's coverage areas. I've never had cable.
The issue wasn't that I had to send a letter, but that ATT lied to me for almost a year. They claimed something was "impossible" then did it in a few hours, when I stopped asking nicely. It was a small technical tweak on my line that didn't even need a truck roll. And it was to change it back to the original config. It worked great when I signed up, then they broke it and refused to acknowledge they broke it, until they fixed it. They violated the contract (and law) by changing my service, and lied for months about it, then lied for months after that in reasons why they wouldn't fix it.
I can't compare to Comcast. Never had them. I can tell you what my experience with ATT was. If yours was worse, share it. Otherwise, I don't understand why you are posting just to whine.
When I ordered a Dell through the corporate account, we had a choice to order Windows OEM, or Windows Volume. They'd inform MS of the order, as per our agreement, but we could retire a piece of hardware at the same time, and we'd have our licensed volume OS delivered installed (with our corporate image), at something like a $10 cost. But then, this was a 10,000 person company, with a 4 year refresh, so a few thousand computers a year.
Having the corporate image pre-installed on the PCs was great, and only an option with volume licensing. So there is value somewhere, but not for the 100 seat company, they are almost always better buying with OEM installed.
The real reason MS pushes for no no-OS option is they know so many OEM licenses exist that someone retiring a computer could buy one with no OS, then move the OEM onto it, and at least appear compliant at a glance. Move the sticker or swap the case, not a huge deal for a 100 seat place with 3-person IT, generally 2 help desk to do the grunt work, and one "manager" to hire the consultants to do the real work. The help desk guys sit bored, and can spend all day swapping hardware to avoid a license cost.
Volume licensing is often more expensive. A copy of XP from release day to last supported day costs a whole lot less to buy a single retail copy, than to volume license it for most companies. Volume licensing is usually a license rental, while a retail copy is a license purchase (as much as you can purchase a license). This makes a large difference to cost. Even better is when you compare "cheap" licenses to volume. OEM is cheaper than retail, so if you use the OEM options when buying new PCs, you'll get cheaper licenses.
Volume sucks. It's good if you have an unlimited budget and prefer ease of license management. But "unlimited budget" doesn't describe anywhere I've ever worked.
I was told something was "impossible" 10 times, until I got tired of their lies, and sent a complaint to the FCC, local regulator, and multiple departments in SBC (formerly and finally ATT), and within 48 hours of dropping a letter in the mail, the service was fixed, and a couple days later, a letter came indicating the problem was fixed and essentially gave a script to read from when the FCC contacted me.
From "impossible" to "done" in a few hours, once I sent a letter to the regulatory bodies. They won't do the job they are required by law to do, unless threatened with legal action. And, sadly, that was my best experience with ATT, as the problem was fixed, even if it took them 6 months to fix their DSL service, and required I send letters to the national and state governments.
Beats the idiots who demand non-Wikipedia cites for everything. I remember millions of details I don't remember how I learned, but I know them, like you know how to work an elevator. Prove the "down" button sends the elevator down to someone who is sitting where you can't see them and claims to not have access to an elevator to check. Proving "common knowledge" is hard. You don't realize it's special when you learn it, so you don't memorize that it's Otis Manual 1997, or whatever.
Gauge the person, then accept what they say or don't. Demanding cites like everything is a Slashdot thread makes *you* the idiot. What, are you to dumb or too lazy to look it up yourself?
They'll use 1% of the new 50%, but that's enough for them to want the new thing. Why do you hate people making choices you don't like? Just accept that people will make choices you wouldn't make.
Please, cite the relevant law I'll be accused of violating and any existing precedents of prosecutions (successful or not). I'll wait.
Blonde is "race". If you discriminate against "fair haired" people, that will be considered under race. There are thousands (if not more) of cases on race.
The shutdown was caused by the veto, not the passing of the bill. The passing of the bill was valid and would have resulted in a working government, then Clinton took an action that caused the government to shut down.
I don't see why it matters so much to you. What does it matter who you blame for the shutdown? It was a good thing, not a bad thing.
There are no laws defending blonds or red-heads against discrimination by brunettes either.
Yes, there are. If you discriminate consistently against blonds, then you will be open to legal action. You are using a strict definition of "race", and the application of the laws doesn't work that way.
How about folks, whose name begins with "Mi*"? There is not a law anywhere in the world (!) explicitly protecting us — how do you sleep at night knowing of this ongoing travesty?
Has there ever been a documented case of someone discriminating against a Mi based on name? No? Then why do you think you deserve special laws?
Oh, well, if we start counting omissions, we can get really far.
I've seen some that explicitly list LGBT (as a non protected class). That's not an omission, but a license to discriminate. Is that any different?
[LBGT] are perfectly equal already — there are no laws singling them out in any way.
Nope, there are hundreds, if not thousands of laws that single them out, whether by name or omission. There are piles of laws on housing and other things that state you can't discriminate on race, gender, age, family status, religion, and/or other factors, but very few of them extend anti-discrimination laws to LBGT. This is singling them out as one of the non-protected classes is singling them out.
" The government shut down after Clinton vetoed the spending bill the Republican Party-controlled Congress sent him. " It was Clinton who "shut it down" by vetoing the budget he didn't like. (if you don't like it, argue with Wikipedia, not me)
There is no connection between the old AT&T and the company called AT&T today.
SBC was spun off ATT, then grew larger, and bought it back. They are now, and have always been the same company, they just had a trial separation for a few years.
When my childhood home was torn down in the early 2000s, the phone that came with the house in the 1950s was still in it. With the "property of AT&T sticker still on it, though no "rental" fees were paid on it as long as I've been alive.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, the same municipalities and states that pass laws to block new fiber entrants, explicitly to protect the entrenched corporations. "For the good of the people".
Nah, that doesn't sound like you claim.
What if you are ordering a rental car in Portugal? If you go to the site from the UK, you see a price of 75 per day, but from Greece, it's 50 per day.
The given examples in TFA are all physical.
In a pure free market, you don't charge based on what people can pay. You charge cost plus. That's the same in Germany as Greece for something provided in Italy. It's the monopoly-thinking that gets "market-based" pricing. And yes, the market is different in different places. The more "pure" the capitalism, the more you move to cost plus, where geography is irrelevant. Since they can't ban every local monopoly, they address the cross-border effects of a local monopoly. If someone in Italy bribes and cajoles the locals for an exclusive car rental business, then they would want to charge monopoly market prices. They would want the person in Greece to buy from them, and would need to charge less for that than the higher prices they get from Germany.
The EU central government can't fix the corruption in Italy, but can ban that discrimination from crossing borders. If there wasn't a monopoly, regardless of how it got there, then the competition would reduce the cost of a car to cost + 10% (or some reasonable return). That price would be the same for Greece and Germany, and would likely be lower than the old Greece price.
My worst experiences with taxis have been where they are most regulated. And I've not had a bad experience where they are less-regulated. The regulations help idiots who get in the first car that stops, without thought or planning. But sane and intelligent humans don't need oppressive legislation to keep them safe from themselves.
It's the legislation that mandates the monopolies enforced by the state. The taxi companies could have better coverage, offer their own apps, and all that, but they refuse to. The legislation causes this by enforcing a monopoly for the bad companies to thrive under.
Nah, just go to a pictograph alphabet. Draw the characters. Easy, simple. I don't know why it isn't used. All my friends use pinyin on QWERTY for input of Chinese characters. But I've never seen one have a draw system. Shouldn't be that hard, the number and types of strokes are pretty consistent. Perhaps it's that Chinese printing is easy, but most don't print. Chinese cursive is inconsistent and confusing.
The analogy I come up with is:
Would the government need a warrant to compel your mother to turn over all the letters she's sent to you over the years, so they can retro-actively track your location in an attempt to link you to crimes?
I worked for a telco (still do, but outside the US now), and the official policy was to comply, without question, to all court orders (warrants being a subset of court orders). Without a court order, we would be breaking the law (both state and federal) to even confirm Bob Smith was a customer, whether it's the local police, sherrif, state cops, or US President asking. But a court order to turn over records (if any), releases us from from any and all legal liability. It might not be able to stand up in court, but that's not our problem.
Sounds pretty bad, glad I never had the option to buy from them, so never even faced the temptation.
I've never lived in Comcast's or TWC's coverage areas. I've never had cable.
The issue wasn't that I had to send a letter, but that ATT lied to me for almost a year. They claimed something was "impossible" then did it in a few hours, when I stopped asking nicely. It was a small technical tweak on my line that didn't even need a truck roll. And it was to change it back to the original config. It worked great when I signed up, then they broke it and refused to acknowledge they broke it, until they fixed it. They violated the contract (and law) by changing my service, and lied for months about it, then lied for months after that in reasons why they wouldn't fix it.
I can't compare to Comcast. Never had them. I can tell you what my experience with ATT was. If yours was worse, share it. Otherwise, I don't understand why you are posting just to whine.
I am an MBA. And you don't understand anything because you are too tied up in the "us vs them" ideology.
When I ordered a Dell through the corporate account, we had a choice to order Windows OEM, or Windows Volume. They'd inform MS of the order, as per our agreement, but we could retire a piece of hardware at the same time, and we'd have our licensed volume OS delivered installed (with our corporate image), at something like a $10 cost. But then, this was a 10,000 person company, with a 4 year refresh, so a few thousand computers a year.
Having the corporate image pre-installed on the PCs was great, and only an option with volume licensing. So there is value somewhere, but not for the 100 seat company, they are almost always better buying with OEM installed.
The real reason MS pushes for no no-OS option is they know so many OEM licenses exist that someone retiring a computer could buy one with no OS, then move the OEM onto it, and at least appear compliant at a glance. Move the sticker or swap the case, not a huge deal for a 100 seat place with 3-person IT, generally 2 help desk to do the grunt work, and one "manager" to hire the consultants to do the real work. The help desk guys sit bored, and can spend all day swapping hardware to avoid a license cost.
Volume licensing is often more expensive. A copy of XP from release day to last supported day costs a whole lot less to buy a single retail copy, than to volume license it for most companies. Volume licensing is usually a license rental, while a retail copy is a license purchase (as much as you can purchase a license). This makes a large difference to cost. Even better is when you compare "cheap" licenses to volume. OEM is cheaper than retail, so if you use the OEM options when buying new PCs, you'll get cheaper licenses.
Volume sucks. It's good if you have an unlimited budget and prefer ease of license management. But "unlimited budget" doesn't describe anywhere I've ever worked.
So you don't hate them, you just think they are ridiculous. I'm not seeing that as a big distinction.
You don't abandon it. But you don't punish your low-margin customers because your high-margin business model is failing.
I was told something was "impossible" 10 times, until I got tired of their lies, and sent a complaint to the FCC, local regulator, and multiple departments in SBC (formerly and finally ATT), and within 48 hours of dropping a letter in the mail, the service was fixed, and a couple days later, a letter came indicating the problem was fixed and essentially gave a script to read from when the FCC contacted me.
From "impossible" to "done" in a few hours, once I sent a letter to the regulatory bodies. They won't do the job they are required by law to do, unless threatened with legal action. And, sadly, that was my best experience with ATT, as the problem was fixed, even if it took them 6 months to fix their DSL service, and required I send letters to the national and state governments.
Beats the idiots who demand non-Wikipedia cites for everything. I remember millions of details I don't remember how I learned, but I know them, like you know how to work an elevator. Prove the "down" button sends the elevator down to someone who is sitting where you can't see them and claims to not have access to an elevator to check. Proving "common knowledge" is hard. You don't realize it's special when you learn it, so you don't memorize that it's Otis Manual 1997, or whatever.
Gauge the person, then accept what they say or don't. Demanding cites like everything is a Slashdot thread makes *you* the idiot. What, are you to dumb or too lazy to look it up yourself?
They'll use 1% of the new 50%, but that's enough for them to want the new thing. Why do you hate people making choices you don't like? Just accept that people will make choices you wouldn't make.
Please, cite the relevant law I'll be accused of violating and any existing precedents of prosecutions (successful or not). I'll wait.
Blonde is "race". If you discriminate against "fair haired" people, that will be considered under race. There are thousands (if not more) of cases on race.
The shutdown was caused by the veto, not the passing of the bill. The passing of the bill was valid and would have resulted in a working government, then Clinton took an action that caused the government to shut down.
I don't see why it matters so much to you. What does it matter who you blame for the shutdown? It was a good thing, not a bad thing.
There are no laws defending blonds or red-heads against discrimination by brunettes either.
Yes, there are. If you discriminate consistently against blonds, then you will be open to legal action. You are using a strict definition of "race", and the application of the laws doesn't work that way.
How about folks, whose name begins with "Mi*"? There is not a law anywhere in the world (!) explicitly protecting us — how do you sleep at night knowing of this ongoing travesty?
Has there ever been a documented case of someone discriminating against a Mi based on name? No? Then why do you think you deserve special laws?
Oh, well, if we start counting omissions, we can get really far.
I've seen some that explicitly list LGBT (as a non protected class). That's not an omission, but a license to discriminate. Is that any different?
[LBGT] are perfectly equal already — there are no laws singling them out in any way.
Nope, there are hundreds, if not thousands of laws that single them out, whether by name or omission. There are piles of laws on housing and other things that state you can't discriminate on race, gender, age, family status, religion, and/or other factors, but very few of them extend anti-discrimination laws to LBGT. This is singling them out as one of the non-protected classes is singling them out.
" The government shut down after Clinton vetoed the spending bill the Republican Party-controlled Congress sent him. " It was Clinton who "shut it down" by vetoing the budget he didn't like. (if you don't like it, argue with Wikipedia, not me)
Then why did Clinton get in so much trouble with the Conservatives by shutting down the government to get a budget he liked?
There is no connection between the old AT&T and the company called AT&T today.
SBC was spun off ATT, then grew larger, and bought it back. They are now, and have always been the same company, they just had a trial separation for a few years.
When my childhood home was torn down in the early 2000s, the phone that came with the house in the 1950s was still in it. With the "property of AT&T sticker still on it, though no "rental" fees were paid on it as long as I've been alive.