...[Ads in general] can ONLY hope not to annoy me enough to decide never to buy the product.
I wish that were true. While there are some products/services whose ads drive me away from the product, I think what happens most of the time is that I forget I've seen the ad, but next time I see the product name, it seems familiar.
A couple years ago, I saw ads for SAP in the airport that communicated ZERO about what it is or does, but just claimed that great businesses use it. Recently I was told to find out about it for our business, and even though their site is extremely vague about everything, I found myself thinking, "this product is for really big and smart businesses; we probably aren't ready for it yet, but it would be neat if we were."
I remember hearing about a study where people rated one of two identical breakfast cereals as tasting better, simply because it came in a more attractive box. We are not as objective as we like to think.
It's sad to realize that many of my product preferences must have less to do with experience than advertising. We are all vulnerable.
In your case, even though you were bested, you had fun because you knew that, fundamentally, you lost fair and square.
Right. I think it also gives a little bit of satisfaction to feel that you're playing against a worthy opponent. Part of the fun of a FPS is the constant feeling of danger. If you never get killed, you don't feel threatened at all, and it's just target practice. Getting killed affirms that the competition is real, and increases your resolve to fight harder or smarter.
Its always: "What can the phone do to make you consume more services?" Instead of "What does the consumer actually want?"
YES. You are so so so right about that. I am on the same soapbox. There are a ton of call-screening and other actual phone features that ought to be universal, but they don't create revenue streams, so they don't get made.
One thing I'd like is a compromise between turning my phone off at night and leaving it on. I want a mode where a caller gets a message saying, "I'm asleep or busy. If this is an emergency, press 1 to ring me anyway." I should also have the option to whitelist certain people to do this, or maybe just blacklist repeat offenders who wake me up. (After all, it could be someone calling on behalf of a loved one.)
As to your call-routing ideas, there is a service that does that and much more, which I stumbled upon a while back. They're not taking new users right now, but it looks freaking amazing. It has been bought by Google, and I practically have fantasies about an Android phone that integrates this service.
It's called Grand Central. It says it will let you hand out one phone number to everyone, and set rules for who rings to what phone - including "don't ring at all for these people." It also lets you record phone calls, switch phones in the middle of a call, have visual voicemail, personalize your voicemail greeting depending on who is calling, and more. SO SO cool.
I am chomping at the bit for a day when users' needs trump the carriers' desire to wring every cent out of us. I think that day is coming.
But if the biggest expense is in infrastructure, Mr. Heavyuser is subsidizing the cost of rolling wire to Mr. Checkemail's door when Mr. Heavyuser has to pay more for his high usage.
Because heavy users increase the "usage density" of an area, thereby making it worthwhile to run wire there, whereas if it was all light users in the area, it wouldn't be worthwhile? (Just trying to understand).
I still don't get it. Even if this is the case, the ISP doesn't know in advance where heavy users will be located, beyond generalizations like "this is a business district, so they'll use VOIP," right? So it's not like the heavy users are there, convincing the ISP to bring service to the area, and the light users benefit, right?
I mean, by the time they know who is a heavy or light user, the infrastructure cost is ALREADY sunk, and at that point, a person who uses a gig a day is equal to four of his neighbors who use 250 MB each in terms of paying back that sunk cost (assuming a per-MB charge, which is what I've been arguing for).
So what you're saying is, "I use a TON of this resource, but I hate paying more than people who use less."
I mean yeah, you're paying a lot, and if I were you I'd hate to see my prices go up, but still - I'm a user who doesn't pull a lot of bandwidth. If I'm your neighbor, and there's a choice between:
1)You paying more than me because you use more
and
2)We pay the same
...it's pretty easy to see that in scenario 2, I'm subsidizing your usage.
As few as 5 percent of our customers use 50 percent of the network,' Time-Warner complains...
By that reasoning, the average person should see their bill go down if these prices go into effect, right? After all, right now they are subsidizing the use of the bandwidth hogs. If the ISP is merely trying to redistribute their charges fairly, and ensure that nobody abuses the system, the per-gig fee should be low enough that most people's monthly bill goes down dramatically.
Of course that won't happen, because what they really want is to raise prices overall, not to make things fair.
A per-gig fee structure would actually be GREAT for consumers if it was priced fairly. After all, when you buy "unlimited," the ISP has actually estimated your usage and charged you a little more. If you don't use what they estimate, you're being overcharged. And if you use way MORE than they estimated, I'M being overcharged to cover your usage. That's hardly fair.
While we're at it, let's eliminate the convoluted "plan" structures of cell carriers and go to a per-minute fee. That would make it awfully easy to see who gives the best deal, wouldn't it?
Of course this is likely an attempt to go from the "unlimited use" shell game to the "overpriced, competition-throttling" strategy. Business as usual.
Yes you need a computer to use the friggin phone - because its a lot more than a phone.
Look, I've got a simple flip phone, and it works fine by itself. But the whole point of the iPhone is to put your media collection on your phone. Unless your media collection is a stack of LPs, you probably already keep it on a computer. I can't picture anyone getting home with the iPhone, opening the box, slapping themselves on the forehead and going, "What?! I need a COMPUTER!?!"
I WISH I could hook my carrier-crippled phone up to my computer. Maybe then I wouldn't lose my contacts every time my phone kicks the bucket, or have to back them up by keying them into a file manually.
You're right - it's a tradeoff, and maybe it's a good one. Your suggestion to make copyright terms shorter makes sense to me, and even as a musician, I wouldn't object. 25 years is plenty of time to exploit a work before it becomes public domain.
What I object to is the idea that every digital thing that gets created should immediately be free to anyone who wants it. If that's the author's intention, fine, and in the real world, there's no way to prevent it.
All I'm saying is that a freeloader mentality from listeners and viewers will ultimately impede the creation of new work. Smart fans will use their dollars to vote for what they want to watch and listen to.
Why can't he be a plumber (or some other occupation) during the day and a musician by night? It's not unheard-of outside of major record labels and is, in fact, quite common.
Yes, it is common. But you're ignoring a basic concept: it takes time and equipment and money to make the music you listen to. It takes even more time and money (and lots of people) to make movies.
Who will pay for the cost of the creating the music and the movies you like? Choose one:
A) All the writers and musicians and producers and engineers and actors and film crews and special effects artists can work second jobs to pay for their own time and buy their own equipment, all to make things free for YOU, even though YOU have a day job, so that YOU can spend your cash on goods which, as chance has it, you can't copy for free .
B) You can pay those people, directly or indirectly, to make content for you to enjoy.
I'm not arguing that every musician must get paid or life isn't fair. There are amateur musicians, and that's fine. I'm just saying that it's naive to expect that part-time creative people can produce the same volume and quality of work during their off hours from a regular job, with no funding, as they can when they make money and do it full-time.
Have you even LOOKED at the price of professional recording and video equipment?
If I work one day as a cop for you and you pay me 100$ and then you work the same day singing a song and ask for 1,000,000$ rest assured I'll try to find a way of not paying you what you don't deserve.
And if he works as a musician and everyone who likes his music takes it without paying, he will give up and become a cop or a plumber too.
End result? Less music for you to listen to. Apply that to movies, where the cost of creation is much higher, and it's even clearer.
With everyone's sense of entitlement aside, if you enjoy the work of people who make a living creating digital works, it's in your best interest to find SOME way to help them continue making a living at it. If you want to screw record labels, support indie films, buy tshirts from bands, whatever - that's fine. But creative people do have to eat. And MOST of them are not making the big bucks, as you suggest.
Look, I've recorded and sold music, and plan to do more. I plan to give it away, and encourage fans to give it away. But I'll also ask for tips, and whether I get any, and how much I get, will directly determine whether I'll be able to quit my day job, how much time I can spend on music, and whether I can come play in your town.
I've donated to programmers who give away code, and I've donated to musicians who give away music. I just want them to keep it up. Any rational fan or consumer must consider that.
Some phone menus are now speech-only, which I find annoying. I have had to call large corporations on my lunch break, expecting to eat while I punched in numbers to get to the right person and sat on hold.
To my dismay, I had to speak every menu option, so I had to stop eating. Since the menu also misunderstood my speech, I got misdirected a time or two as well.
You can imagine this happening to people who are calling from a noisy environment, like a subway, or outside when a train is passing. If I must talk to a machine, it would be nice to have the option of keying in my choices.
Ultimately it's the fans of the work that suffer when the work is no longer available, or it is available in limited quantities due to some hippies wanting to free the media.
This is dead-on. Yes, copyright should be limited in scope, and big companies abuse the heck out of it. But if there ever comes a day when nobody pays for digital works, just because they don't have to, then creating digital works will become a non-paying job.
Forget big companies for a moment, and imagine independent films and independent musicians - that's the way things seem to be going anyway. The fact is that it takes a lot of time and skill and people and equipment to make a great movie or album. (Even books take time and skill!) If there's no money in it, even those who create purely for passion will have to start giving the bulk of their time to a job that pays.
This means less content is made and fans suffer. If you like movies and music, and you're able to take them for free, I'd advise you to reconsider and find a way to contribute funds to the creators. Otherwise they won't be able to continue.
Grandma would get away with a $5 or less bill at the end of the month, and there ain't no way the telcos would go for that.
You're right, they wouldn't go for it, because it's cheap for the consumer and fair. All I'm saying is, if we as consumers are going to argue for something, "unlimited" pricing shouldn't be it. That's the way The Man wants you to think.:)
How about really giving customers unlimited bandwidth? If they lack the infrastructure to support what they claim, then they should get better lines.
Um... because there's no such thing as unlimited bandwidth? Any claim of "unlimited" just means "we've estimated your usage and we think we can handle it."
Buying a product in bulk that expires every month makes no sense for the consumer. Doing it in "unlimited" amounts just means that those who don't use much have to subsidize those who use a lot.
I think it makes perfect sense to pay for bandwidth and cellphone minutes in proportion to usage. Think about cell phone plans: if you don't use all your minutes, you're overpaying; if you do use all your minutes, you pay a big penalty for any additional use. End result: almost everyone overpays.
I would much rather pay a very low rate per minute. That way I can buy exactly as many minutes as I need in a given month, at a known rate, and not worry.
Why should bandwidth be different? It costs money to provide it, and those who use a resource most should pay in proportion to their usage. Just make the per-megabyte fee very low. This fixes everyone's problems: every consumer will have a fair bill, the provider will profit in proportion to usage, and if, like the grandparent stated, you only have occasional spikes in usage, it won't affect your budget very much.
Why WOULDN'T you want to keep the same phone number? I've always had the same cell number and hopefully always will. I've moved, but the area code is less and less relevant as more people have cell phones anyway.
I see no reason to change phone numbers or email addresses as long as they still work. Old friends can always reach me if they want to.
It may not work to divide up the reading of a legal document into sections. For example, if they define "the file sharing website" in an overly broad way on page 1, that might have ramifications on page 2,500 that won't be clear unless you've read both. And even if you have, it's impossible to keep all the implications straight in a document that long.
Honestly, I think that merely filing such a huge document should be seen by a court as obstructionist.
Usually they say something along the lines of "I don't care if I lose access to my music in 10 years, after all it's 10 years old so not important"
If you lose access to your music 10 years from now, unless you stop buying music today, it won't ALL be 10 years old. Some of it might be a week old. And if you DO still want it, you'd have to buy it again. You bought it. It should be yours.
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I wish that were true. While there are some products/services whose ads drive me away from the product, I think what happens most of the time is that I forget I've seen the ad, but next time I see the product name, it seems familiar.
A couple years ago, I saw ads for SAP in the airport that communicated ZERO about what it is or does, but just claimed that great businesses use it. Recently I was told to find out about it for our business, and even though their site is extremely vague about everything, I found myself thinking, "this product is for really big and smart businesses; we probably aren't ready for it yet, but it would be neat if we were."
I remember hearing about a study where people rated one of two identical breakfast cereals as tasting better, simply because it came in a more attractive box. We are not as objective as we like to think.
It's sad to realize that many of my product preferences must have less to do with experience than advertising. We are all vulnerable.
Right. I think it also gives a little bit of satisfaction to feel that you're playing against a worthy opponent. Part of the fun of a FPS is the constant feeling of danger. If you never get killed, you don't feel threatened at all, and it's just target practice. Getting killed affirms that the competition is real, and increases your resolve to fight harder or smarter.
YES. You are so so so right about that. I am on the same soapbox. There are a ton of call-screening and other actual phone features that ought to be universal, but they don't create revenue streams, so they don't get made.
One thing I'd like is a compromise between turning my phone off at night and leaving it on. I want a mode where a caller gets a message saying, "I'm asleep or busy. If this is an emergency, press 1 to ring me anyway." I should also have the option to whitelist certain people to do this, or maybe just blacklist repeat offenders who wake me up. (After all, it could be someone calling on behalf of a loved one.)
As to your call-routing ideas, there is a service that does that and much more, which I stumbled upon a while back. They're not taking new users right now, but it looks freaking amazing. It has been bought by Google, and I practically have fantasies about an Android phone that integrates this service.
It's called Grand Central. It says it will let you hand out one phone number to everyone, and set rules for who rings to what phone - including "don't ring at all for these people." It also lets you record phone calls, switch phones in the middle of a call, have visual voicemail, personalize your voicemail greeting depending on who is calling, and more. SO SO cool.
I am chomping at the bit for a day when users' needs trump the carriers' desire to wring every cent out of us. I think that day is coming.
Because heavy users increase the "usage density" of an area, thereby making it worthwhile to run wire there, whereas if it was all light users in the area, it wouldn't be worthwhile? (Just trying to understand).
I still don't get it. Even if this is the case, the ISP doesn't know in advance where heavy users will be located, beyond generalizations like "this is a business district, so they'll use VOIP," right? So it's not like the heavy users are there, convincing the ISP to bring service to the area, and the light users benefit, right?
I mean, by the time they know who is a heavy or light user, the infrastructure cost is ALREADY sunk, and at that point, a person who uses a gig a day is equal to four of his neighbors who use 250 MB each in terms of paying back that sunk cost (assuming a per-MB charge, which is what I've been arguing for).
Right?
I sympathize, and I'd bet 10 to 1 that they will gouge you if they can. I do think you should fight a price hike.
I was just trying to say that making usage and price proportional is a logical and fair idea. How they actually implement it will probably be neither.
Really? I don't understand what you mean.
Assuming everyone is paying proportional to their usage, one heavy user = multiple light users, both in bandwidth and in payment.
How is it that equality = inequality?
So what you're saying is, "I use a TON of this resource, but I hate paying more than people who use less."
I mean yeah, you're paying a lot, and if I were you I'd hate to see my prices go up, but still - I'm a user who doesn't pull a lot of bandwidth. If I'm your neighbor, and there's a choice between:
1)You paying more than me because you use more
and
2)We pay the same
...it's pretty easy to see that in scenario 2, I'm subsidizing your usage.
By that reasoning, the average person should see their bill go down if these prices go into effect, right? After all, right now they are subsidizing the use of the bandwidth hogs. If the ISP is merely trying to redistribute their charges fairly, and ensure that nobody abuses the system, the per-gig fee should be low enough that most people's monthly bill goes down dramatically.
Of course that won't happen, because what they really want is to raise prices overall, not to make things fair.
A per-gig fee structure would actually be GREAT for consumers if it was priced fairly. After all, when you buy "unlimited," the ISP has actually estimated your usage and charged you a little more. If you don't use what they estimate, you're being overcharged. And if you use way MORE than they estimated, I'M being overcharged to cover your usage. That's hardly fair.
While we're at it, let's eliminate the convoluted "plan" structures of cell carriers and go to a per-minute fee. That would make it awfully easy to see who gives the best deal, wouldn't it?
Of course this is likely an attempt to go from the "unlimited use" shell game to the "overpriced, competition-throttling" strategy. Business as usual.
Yes you need a computer to use the friggin phone - because its a lot more than a phone.
Look, I've got a simple flip phone, and it works fine by itself. But the whole point of the iPhone is to put your media collection on your phone. Unless your media collection is a stack of LPs, you probably already keep it on a computer. I can't picture anyone getting home with the iPhone, opening the box, slapping themselves on the forehead and going, "What?! I need a COMPUTER!?!"
I WISH I could hook my carrier-crippled phone up to my computer. Maybe then I wouldn't lose my contacts every time my phone kicks the bucket, or have to back them up by keying them into a file manually.
You're right - it's a tradeoff, and maybe it's a good one. Your suggestion to make copyright terms shorter makes sense to me, and even as a musician, I wouldn't object. 25 years is plenty of time to exploit a work before it becomes public domain.
What I object to is the idea that every digital thing that gets created should immediately be free to anyone who wants it. If that's the author's intention, fine, and in the real world, there's no way to prevent it.
All I'm saying is that a freeloader mentality from listeners and viewers will ultimately impede the creation of new work. Smart fans will use their dollars to vote for what they want to watch and listen to.
Yes, it is common. But you're ignoring a basic concept: it takes time and equipment and money to make the music you listen to. It takes even more time and money (and lots of people) to make movies.
Who will pay for the cost of the creating the music and the movies you like? Choose one:
A) All the writers and musicians and producers and engineers and actors and film crews and special effects artists can work second jobs to pay for their own time and buy their own equipment, all to make things free for YOU, even though YOU have a day job, so that YOU can spend your cash on goods which, as chance has it, you can't copy for free
. B) You can pay those people, directly or indirectly, to make content for you to enjoy.
I'm not arguing that every musician must get paid or life isn't fair. There are amateur musicians, and that's fine. I'm just saying that it's naive to expect that part-time creative people can produce the same volume and quality of work during their off hours from a regular job, with no funding, as they can when they make money and do it full-time.
Have you even LOOKED at the price of professional recording and video equipment?
And if he works as a musician and everyone who likes his music takes it without paying, he will give up and become a cop or a plumber too.
End result? Less music for you to listen to. Apply that to movies, where the cost of creation is much higher, and it's even clearer.
With everyone's sense of entitlement aside, if you enjoy the work of people who make a living creating digital works, it's in your best interest to find SOME way to help them continue making a living at it. If you want to screw record labels, support indie films, buy tshirts from bands, whatever - that's fine. But creative people do have to eat. And MOST of them are not making the big bucks, as you suggest.
Look, I've recorded and sold music, and plan to do more. I plan to give it away, and encourage fans to give it away. But I'll also ask for tips, and whether I get any, and how much I get, will directly determine whether I'll be able to quit my day job, how much time I can spend on music, and whether I can come play in your town.
I've donated to programmers who give away code, and I've donated to musicians who give away music. I just want them to keep it up. Any rational fan or consumer must consider that.
Some phone menus are now speech-only, which I find annoying. I have had to call large corporations on my lunch break, expecting to eat while I punched in numbers to get to the right person and sat on hold.
To my dismay, I had to speak every menu option, so I had to stop eating. Since the menu also misunderstood my speech, I got misdirected a time or two as well.
You can imagine this happening to people who are calling from a noisy environment, like a subway, or outside when a train is passing. If I must talk to a machine, it would be nice to have the option of keying in my choices.
This is dead-on. Yes, copyright should be limited in scope, and big companies abuse the heck out of it. But if there ever comes a day when nobody pays for digital works, just because they don't have to, then creating digital works will become a non-paying job.
Forget big companies for a moment, and imagine independent films and independent musicians - that's the way things seem to be going anyway. The fact is that it takes a lot of time and skill and people and equipment to make a great movie or album. (Even books take time and skill!) If there's no money in it, even those who create purely for passion will have to start giving the bulk of their time to a job that pays.
This means less content is made and fans suffer. If you like movies and music, and you're able to take them for free, I'd advise you to reconsider and find a way to contribute funds to the creators. Otherwise they won't be able to continue.
I am worried. Looks like my comment has now been modded "Interesting" insteady of "Funny."
Sigh.
I knew what you meant. :)
You're right, they wouldn't go for it, because it's cheap for the consumer and fair. All I'm saying is, if we as consumers are going to argue for something, "unlimited" pricing shouldn't be it. That's the way The Man wants you to think. :)
Well, I thought I was being funny...
I color sampled the image of this stuff, and its RGB value is #071108. I can make a blacker square in Paint.net and print it out.
Call me back when you reach less than #000000 and I'll be impressed.
Um... because there's no such thing as unlimited bandwidth? Any claim of "unlimited" just means "we've estimated your usage and we think we can handle it."
Buying a product in bulk that expires every month makes no sense for the consumer. Doing it in "unlimited" amounts just means that those who don't use much have to subsidize those who use a lot.
I think it makes perfect sense to pay for bandwidth and cellphone minutes in proportion to usage. Think about cell phone plans: if you don't use all your minutes, you're overpaying; if you do use all your minutes, you pay a big penalty for any additional use. End result: almost everyone overpays.
I would much rather pay a very low rate per minute. That way I can buy exactly as many minutes as I need in a given month, at a known rate, and not worry.
Why should bandwidth be different? It costs money to provide it, and those who use a resource most should pay in proportion to their usage. Just make the per-megabyte fee very low. This fixes everyone's problems: every consumer will have a fair bill, the provider will profit in proportion to usage, and if, like the grandparent stated, you only have occasional spikes in usage, it won't affect your budget very much.
Why WOULDN'T you want to keep the same phone number? I've always had the same cell number and hopefully always will. I've moved, but the area code is less and less relevant as more people have cell phones anyway.
I see no reason to change phone numbers or email addresses as long as they still work. Old friends can always reach me if they want to.
It may not work to divide up the reading of a legal document into sections. For example, if they define "the file sharing website" in an overly broad way on page 1, that might have ramifications on page 2,500 that won't be clear unless you've read both. And even if you have, it's impossible to keep all the implications straight in a document that long.
Honestly, I think that merely filing such a huge document should be seen by a court as obstructionist.
If you lose access to your music 10 years from now, unless you stop buying music today, it won't ALL be 10 years old. Some of it might be a week old. And if you DO still want it, you'd have to buy it again. You bought it. It should be yours.