Well, as long as people are motivated by this "impatience" to continually improve processes and procedures in order to make them more effecient I don't see what the big deal is. If you haven't noticed that is generally the direction that tech and progress is headed anyway. If some old farts can't get used to it, tough.
I can see the French point of view somewhat. Shipping is an accepted and expected part of the price of something and to offer that up for free is an indirect discount on the price.
I'm sure we've all seen ebay auctions that do the opposite by selling some $2 gizmo and charging $10 for shipping. Of course these people do this for different motives (to save listing fees) but with this in mind would you say the gizmo cost $2 or $12?
When I shop online I consider shipping costs on everything I buy because as far as I am concerned the shipping cost is part of the total cost of the item.
While I agree with the "jack of all trades, master of none" cliche you have invoked, I'd have to say that if any company could prove you wrong, it would most certainly be Wal-Mart. Also, for the majority of its customers, I highly doubt that "mastery" is required. The average Wal-Mart shopper has got along just fine with many a crappy product/service for years so I doubt Wal-Mart will have to master anything else it wishes to push on its customer-base.
These "Annals of Improbable Research" are of dubious value to the public and I can hardly see a reason for them being published on the web other than for the purpose of humor. With that being said, I doubt anyone would pay to see this material so the fact that they are available free is hardly noteworthy.
If google can actually make this work out I can only hope that the black hat SEO will someday become obsolete. Reading the way they determine page rank it seems the best way to gain rank is to simply build a good site and advertise it intelligently rather than just spamming.
Of course, whether or not they are actually using all these techniques is another thing altogether. I'm still hoping the pigeon explanation is truthfull.
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Well, as long as people are motivated by this "impatience" to continually improve processes and procedures in order to make them more effecient I don't see what the big deal is. If you haven't noticed that is generally the direction that tech and progress is headed anyway. If some old farts can't get used to it, tough.
I can see the French point of view somewhat. Shipping is an accepted and expected part of the price of something and to offer that up for free is an indirect discount on the price. I'm sure we've all seen ebay auctions that do the opposite by selling some $2 gizmo and charging $10 for shipping. Of course these people do this for different motives (to save listing fees) but with this in mind would you say the gizmo cost $2 or $12? When I shop online I consider shipping costs on everything I buy because as far as I am concerned the shipping cost is part of the total cost of the item.
While I agree with the "jack of all trades, master of none" cliche you have invoked, I'd have to say that if any company could prove you wrong, it would most certainly be Wal-Mart. Also, for the majority of its customers, I highly doubt that "mastery" is required. The average Wal-Mart shopper has got along just fine with many a crappy product/service for years so I doubt Wal-Mart will have to master anything else it wishes to push on its customer-base.
These "Annals of Improbable Research" are of dubious value to the public and I can hardly see a reason for them being published on the web other than for the purpose of humor. With that being said, I doubt anyone would pay to see this material so the fact that they are available free is hardly noteworthy.
If google can actually make this work out I can only hope that the black hat SEO will someday become obsolete. Reading the way they determine page rank it seems the best way to gain rank is to simply build a good site and advertise it intelligently rather than just spamming. Of course, whether or not they are actually using all these techniques is another thing altogether. I'm still hoping the pigeon explanation is truthfull.