They weren't giving anything away, it was something that the customers were paying for. Corporations don't just give things away.
I realize that there's a lot of trolls out there that seem to be incapable of accepting that the customers got screwed here. You need the DVD plan if you want access to the entire library, the streaming library is far from complete and even within a particular TV series it's often times going to require a DVD to watch from start to finish.
Consequently, even those of us that wouldn't have minded streaming only have to wonder why we're being asked to pay as much for streaming as for DVDs when we're not getting anywhere near as good of a selection.
Also, the numbers to watch aren't just the subscribers, they're going to be losing money for the next couple quarters according to the forecast, and this will only serve to strengthen competition which is also going to do nothing positive for Netflix's bottom line.
Honestly, it was probably hubris. And it's going to take them years to fix the damage that this series of hamfisted mistakes has done to their reputation.
Exactly, I had the money to pay the increase, a lot of people don't, but I ultimately jumped ship because it was pretty clear that the increase was a money grab. This was the 2nd price increase this year and there was absolutely no indication that I would be getting more for my money at any point. At this stage, it looks like subscribers will get even less for their money when the Stars contract ends in February.
Plus, I'm getting kind of tired subsidizing companies that are expanding into foreign markets.
And the move would have made more sense if the streaming selection wasn't so blowful. I might have remained with them had the selection either been better or the price lower. Paying the same $8 for streaming as for DVDs makes no sense when the library is so much larger for DVDs than for streaming. Ultimately, I got pissed off enough that I went with Blockbuster, I'm paying an extra $3 a month over the 2 a plan at Netflix, but I get game rentals and Blurays.
Worse is that you can't necessarily count on something being available for stream later on if you put it on your queue. Like TV, well that entire series might require a couple DVDs to completely finish.
Hopefully now that Steve Jobs is dead, Apple will finally halt its ceaseless war against usability. Sometimes removing a button leads to increased usability, but usually not. You don't just wake up and discover that your devices' buttons have been breeding. They're placed there by somebody for some reason, ideally there should be a button for every commonly used command. Or even better soft buttons where you can choose yourself.
The latest iPods are more or less completely unusable for somebody with large hands, and definitely completely unusable by the blind because they've removed all the tactile sensations that allow people to know what buttons they're pushing. Personally, I'd like to be able to press a button without having to pay close attention to whether the one I wanted to press was the one that got pressed.
Prior art shouldn't come into play, this "invention" is terribly obvious. There's only a handful of ways of unlocking a phone which don't utilize a hardware toggly switch.
20 years would be fine if people couldn't get software related patents. 2 years isn't anywhere near enough time for people to make back their money on the R&D side of things these days, it can cost literally billions to bring medications to market, and millions for less expensive things to be brought to market. Even just the fees associated with getting a patent can take up hundreds of thousands of dollars. If people know that they can just wait a couple years, it's much more likely that they will, because having to pay those bills off in such a short period of time would likely lead to a substantial increase in cost.
No, it's been known since at least sometime in the 30s that there would be less and less need for labor in the future. What wasn't foreseen was the willingness of the working class to allow wealth to collect at the top and the increased consumption of things that people don't particularly want or need.
Back then it was expected that in the future the normal work day would shrink from 8 hours to something more like 3 hours as workers got more done in less time. Basically failing to account for robber barons that tend to screw up such things and assuming that people would continue to support their own best interests.
Right, at present I don't believe there's much evidence to support any benefit for people already infected, however if you're only infected with one of the strains that is included, there would likely still be some benefit.
But, as others have said, it's not just sex, these strains do sometimes cause throat cancer as well as penile, cervical and anal cancers so, hypothetically there should be some risk just from kissing.
It's not a matter of lobbying, vaccinating only girls doesn't have the same benefits that vaccinating everybody does. The main question was whether any possible health risks for men would offset the health benefits for them.
Vaccinating just specific groups is a bit of a warning that there's probably something going wrong. That's usually only done when supplies of vaccines are short, hedging this way without shortages is always going to be suspicious.
I'm trying to figure out how this is somehow unexpected. My understanding was that traffic between me and Google was being done via SSL, not traffic from Google to the site.
Ultimately, this is a significant improvement over how it was previously, done, but shy of requiring all traffic to be over SSL, I'm not really sure how much better this could be.
That's not accurate, their most recent subscriber numbers were down to 23.8m subscribers. They also lost nearly a million dollars a month worth of revenue, if not more from it. $12m might not be a lot in the grand scheme of things, but right now the competition is heating up and if they're wanting to expand to other countries, they're going to need it, not to mention licensing new content.
You also have to keep in mind that Blockbuster offers the same DVD service that Netflix does, but with the added bonus of games. And if you happen to live near a Blockbuster location you can do in store exchanges as well as by mail.
As far as the streaming business goes, it sucks. Charging $2 for it would probably be fair because the content is just that bad. They have a huge catalog of DVDs, only a fraction of which are available for streaming at any particular time and if you're in to TV shows you'll often times have to get some of the shows via DVD even if the rest are available for streaming.
That's bullshit, the real barrier to entry is that it's extremely expensive to put up your own network and there's scarcity issue with spectrum. Without FCC regulation the barriers to entry would be even more significant as you'd not only have to build the infrastructure, but you'd also have a race to install the most powerful equipment possible to blast over everybody elses equipment.
Like I said, this is the kind of bitch slap you get when there's insufficient regulation.
The issue here isn't capitalism, it's failing to heed the warnings of Adam Smith, if you don't have sufficient regulation, this is exactly the kind of bitch slap you get from the invisible hand.
When I first loaded up Linux a decade or so ago, there were definitely serious issues. It wasn't just that a lot of hardware wasn't supported it was that even hardware that supposedly was supported wouldn't work right.
These days it's mostly folks like Canonical that don't seem to believe in QA that seem to be the problem. The good news is that it's a lot easier to find distros that are a bit more polished and actually work as promised. It's inexcusable for any distro to "support" bluetooth keyboards but not for logging in.
Those teachers aren't good typically, they're timid and likely not to inspire much confidence in the students. A good teacher needs to have breathing room if a controversial subject comes up to teach about the controversy and hopefully inspire some interest in further research.
It's perfectly acceptable English even if somewhat informal.
I realize that it's common for trolls around here to gripe about that sort of thing, but language variety is real and failing to teach students about it is almost as egregious as not teaching them any grammar at all.
And precisely where is that money going to come from? They could get an awful lot of mileage from using that money to pay for meals, school supplies and tutoring for students in need. Or perhaps a librarian and librarian's assistant to go along with a good selection of books.
You make that sound like a bad thing. The reason why most universities provide tenure is so that the professors don't have to worry about being fired when a new dean comes in and decides that a teacher is being controversial.
Likewise with the K-12 system teachers are always under pressure from administrators and parents to do this or don't do that, and without job security in that form, it gets really tough for the educators to make any decisions about how to run their class as a single minor complaint can result in termination.
But, lastly, at this stage, we don't really know what makes a particular teacher good, there are a lot of ideas, but when it comes down to it, even with resources and time, there aren't any assessments that can fairly and accurately judge good teacher from bad in a reliable way.
As for rewarding good teachers, they certainly can, there just isn't usually money to do so because the tax payers aren't willing to pay more than they absolutely have to. They reward good teachers by paying a stipend for passing the national boards or by improving the work environment.
I've gotten my hands dirty, and quite frankly most of those jobs aren't just undesirable because of the hard work, they're also undesirable because of the low pay, poor job security and the fact that ones body can't typically cope with that into old age.
It's not a matter of looking down on it, it's the fact that you're not likely to be taken care of and at some point you're going to be too sick to work a job like that, and then what do you do?
If you're rich enough to work for a full year without collecting pay, then you're not somebody that's in touch with the reality that most people are in. Even individuals who are otherwise responsible aren't likely to be able to afford to take an entire year without pay.
Certainly not if you're in the bottom half of the households in terms of household earnings.
And it's a bullshit point to suggest that anybody who argues against me has no right to do so, only those who have the luxury of taking an entire year or more off without needing to be paid for work. Those individuals make up only a small fraction of the total population most of whom don't have any real comprehension about what it's like to have to work for a living.
They're not spiraling out of control because of federal loans, they're spiraling out of control because supply of seats isn't keeping up with demand. And the demand is increasing because it's getting to be really tough to support oneself and ones family without a college degree.
But, more than that, as the blue collar jobs without degree requirements get shipped overseas or downsized there's been increasing focus on getting people to go to college, whether or not they need it.
I'm sure the guaranteed loan doesn't help, but it's less of a contributing factor than the myriad scholarships that administrators assume people can get when planning the school's spending. Apart from Princeton, few schools have taken no or low loans seriously.
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They weren't giving anything away, it was something that the customers were paying for. Corporations don't just give things away.
I realize that there's a lot of trolls out there that seem to be incapable of accepting that the customers got screwed here. You need the DVD plan if you want access to the entire library, the streaming library is far from complete and even within a particular TV series it's often times going to require a DVD to watch from start to finish.
Consequently, even those of us that wouldn't have minded streaming only have to wonder why we're being asked to pay as much for streaming as for DVDs when we're not getting anywhere near as good of a selection.
Also, the numbers to watch aren't just the subscribers, they're going to be losing money for the next couple quarters according to the forecast, and this will only serve to strengthen competition which is also going to do nothing positive for Netflix's bottom line.
Honestly, it was probably hubris. And it's going to take them years to fix the damage that this series of hamfisted mistakes has done to their reputation.
Exactly, I had the money to pay the increase, a lot of people don't, but I ultimately jumped ship because it was pretty clear that the increase was a money grab. This was the 2nd price increase this year and there was absolutely no indication that I would be getting more for my money at any point. At this stage, it looks like subscribers will get even less for their money when the Stars contract ends in February.
Plus, I'm getting kind of tired subsidizing companies that are expanding into foreign markets.
And the move would have made more sense if the streaming selection wasn't so blowful. I might have remained with them had the selection either been better or the price lower. Paying the same $8 for streaming as for DVDs makes no sense when the library is so much larger for DVDs than for streaming. Ultimately, I got pissed off enough that I went with Blockbuster, I'm paying an extra $3 a month over the 2 a plan at Netflix, but I get game rentals and Blurays.
Worse is that you can't necessarily count on something being available for stream later on if you put it on your queue. Like TV, well that entire series might require a couple DVDs to completely finish.
Hopefully now that Steve Jobs is dead, Apple will finally halt its ceaseless war against usability. Sometimes removing a button leads to increased usability, but usually not. You don't just wake up and discover that your devices' buttons have been breeding. They're placed there by somebody for some reason, ideally there should be a button for every commonly used command. Or even better soft buttons where you can choose yourself.
The latest iPods are more or less completely unusable for somebody with large hands, and definitely completely unusable by the blind because they've removed all the tactile sensations that allow people to know what buttons they're pushing. Personally, I'd like to be able to press a button without having to pay close attention to whether the one I wanted to press was the one that got pressed.
Prior art shouldn't come into play, this "invention" is terribly obvious. There's only a handful of ways of unlocking a phone which don't utilize a hardware toggly switch.
20 years would be fine if people couldn't get software related patents. 2 years isn't anywhere near enough time for people to make back their money on the R&D side of things these days, it can cost literally billions to bring medications to market, and millions for less expensive things to be brought to market. Even just the fees associated with getting a patent can take up hundreds of thousands of dollars. If people know that they can just wait a couple years, it's much more likely that they will, because having to pay those bills off in such a short period of time would likely lead to a substantial increase in cost.
No, it's been known since at least sometime in the 30s that there would be less and less need for labor in the future. What wasn't foreseen was the willingness of the working class to allow wealth to collect at the top and the increased consumption of things that people don't particularly want or need.
Back then it was expected that in the future the normal work day would shrink from 8 hours to something more like 3 hours as workers got more done in less time. Basically failing to account for robber barons that tend to screw up such things and assuming that people would continue to support their own best interests.
Obviously, they were quite wrong in that regard.
Right, at present I don't believe there's much evidence to support any benefit for people already infected, however if you're only infected with one of the strains that is included, there would likely still be some benefit.
But, as others have said, it's not just sex, these strains do sometimes cause throat cancer as well as penile, cervical and anal cancers so, hypothetically there should be some risk just from kissing.
It's not a matter of lobbying, vaccinating only girls doesn't have the same benefits that vaccinating everybody does. The main question was whether any possible health risks for men would offset the health benefits for them.
Vaccinating just specific groups is a bit of a warning that there's probably something going wrong. That's usually only done when supplies of vaccines are short, hedging this way without shortages is always going to be suspicious.
I'm trying to figure out how this is somehow unexpected. My understanding was that traffic between me and Google was being done via SSL, not traffic from Google to the site.
Ultimately, this is a significant improvement over how it was previously, done, but shy of requiring all traffic to be over SSL, I'm not really sure how much better this could be.
That's not accurate, their most recent subscriber numbers were down to 23.8m subscribers. They also lost nearly a million dollars a month worth of revenue, if not more from it. $12m might not be a lot in the grand scheme of things, but right now the competition is heating up and if they're wanting to expand to other countries, they're going to need it, not to mention licensing new content.
You also have to keep in mind that Blockbuster offers the same DVD service that Netflix does, but with the added bonus of games. And if you happen to live near a Blockbuster location you can do in store exchanges as well as by mail.
As far as the streaming business goes, it sucks. Charging $2 for it would probably be fair because the content is just that bad. They have a huge catalog of DVDs, only a fraction of which are available for streaming at any particular time and if you're in to TV shows you'll often times have to get some of the shows via DVD even if the rest are available for streaming.
I'm not aware of any ISPs in the US that have a cap of only 150GB/month. And the ISP I have has no cap at all at present.
Sufficient regulation implies that it's effectual.
That's bullshit, the real barrier to entry is that it's extremely expensive to put up your own network and there's scarcity issue with spectrum. Without FCC regulation the barriers to entry would be even more significant as you'd not only have to build the infrastructure, but you'd also have a race to install the most powerful equipment possible to blast over everybody elses equipment.
Like I said, this is the kind of bitch slap you get when there's insufficient regulation.
The issue here isn't capitalism, it's failing to heed the warnings of Adam Smith, if you don't have sufficient regulation, this is exactly the kind of bitch slap you get from the invisible hand.
When I first loaded up Linux a decade or so ago, there were definitely serious issues. It wasn't just that a lot of hardware wasn't supported it was that even hardware that supposedly was supported wouldn't work right.
These days it's mostly folks like Canonical that don't seem to believe in QA that seem to be the problem. The good news is that it's a lot easier to find distros that are a bit more polished and actually work as promised. It's inexcusable for any distro to "support" bluetooth keyboards but not for logging in.
Those teachers aren't good typically, they're timid and likely not to inspire much confidence in the students. A good teacher needs to have breathing room if a controversial subject comes up to teach about the controversy and hopefully inspire some interest in further research.
It's perfectly acceptable English even if somewhat informal.
I realize that it's common for trolls around here to gripe about that sort of thing, but language variety is real and failing to teach students about it is almost as egregious as not teaching them any grammar at all.
And precisely where is that money going to come from? They could get an awful lot of mileage from using that money to pay for meals, school supplies and tutoring for students in need. Or perhaps a librarian and librarian's assistant to go along with a good selection of books.
You make that sound like a bad thing. The reason why most universities provide tenure is so that the professors don't have to worry about being fired when a new dean comes in and decides that a teacher is being controversial.
Likewise with the K-12 system teachers are always under pressure from administrators and parents to do this or don't do that, and without job security in that form, it gets really tough for the educators to make any decisions about how to run their class as a single minor complaint can result in termination.
But, lastly, at this stage, we don't really know what makes a particular teacher good, there are a lot of ideas, but when it comes down to it, even with resources and time, there aren't any assessments that can fairly and accurately judge good teacher from bad in a reliable way.
As for rewarding good teachers, they certainly can, there just isn't usually money to do so because the tax payers aren't willing to pay more than they absolutely have to. They reward good teachers by paying a stipend for passing the national boards or by improving the work environment.
I've gotten my hands dirty, and quite frankly most of those jobs aren't just undesirable because of the hard work, they're also undesirable because of the low pay, poor job security and the fact that ones body can't typically cope with that into old age.
It's not a matter of looking down on it, it's the fact that you're not likely to be taken care of and at some point you're going to be too sick to work a job like that, and then what do you do?
If you're rich enough to work for a full year without collecting pay, then you're not somebody that's in touch with the reality that most people are in. Even individuals who are otherwise responsible aren't likely to be able to afford to take an entire year without pay.
Certainly not if you're in the bottom half of the households in terms of household earnings.
And it's a bullshit point to suggest that anybody who argues against me has no right to do so, only those who have the luxury of taking an entire year or more off without needing to be paid for work. Those individuals make up only a small fraction of the total population most of whom don't have any real comprehension about what it's like to have to work for a living.
Because I shouldn't have to trust or pay a 3rd party of the functionality?
They're not spiraling out of control because of federal loans, they're spiraling out of control because supply of seats isn't keeping up with demand. And the demand is increasing because it's getting to be really tough to support oneself and ones family without a college degree.
But, more than that, as the blue collar jobs without degree requirements get shipped overseas or downsized there's been increasing focus on getting people to go to college, whether or not they need it.
I'm sure the guaranteed loan doesn't help, but it's less of a contributing factor than the myriad scholarships that administrators assume people can get when planning the school's spending. Apart from Princeton, few schools have taken no or low loans seriously.