XPost: alt.startrek, alt.tv.star-trek, alt.tv.star-trek.enterprise   
   XPost: rec.arts.startrek.current   
   From: quake2lives@gmail.com   
      
   Jaxtraw wrote:   
   > EvilBill wrote:   
   >>   
   >> I think he's against people being greedy; I mean, just look at   
   >> Micro$haft. Rich beyond the dreams of avarice, so can easily afford   
   >> to sell their products at prices that *everyone* can afford,   
   >   
   > Why should they? They're a business. If people are stupid enough to   
   > pay exhorbitant prices, they have every right to charge them.   
   >   
      
   Well I won't pay those sorts of prices. I just resort to a search engine   
   and a BitTorrent client.    
      
   >> yet they   
   >> still insist on slapping prices on them that only the super-rich can   
   >> pay.   
   >   
   > Uhm... so all the zillions of people using Windows are "super-rich"   
   > are they?   
   >   
      
   Windows is the *cheapest* piece of software that M$ puts out. People   
   might be able to afford £100 for XP Home, but far fewer can afford the   
   £700 or so for M$ Office...   
   Besides, most people use Windows because they bought a PC that came with   
   it preinstalled. And for every legit copy of Windows M$ actually   
   *sells*, I suspect a dozen people download a pirate copy. (XP Home might   
   be relatively cheap, but XP Pro is quite a bit more expensive, as is   
   Windows 2000 still.)   
      
   >> Corporate fatcats   
   >   
   > "I hate people who are richer than me because of my irrational belief   
   > that somehow making them poor would make me richer".   
   >   
      
   So you think it's acceptable that these people award themselves   
   multi-million-pound bonuses while at the same time, for example, the   
   company pension scheme goes down the tubes leaving all the employees   
   with no pension?   
      
   >> commanding extreme salaries for sitting on   
   >> their fat arses while the dogsbodies get paid less than minimum wage.   
   >   
   > I doubt they're paying less than minimum wage, since that'd be kind of   
   > illegal.   
      
   Tell that to the people in Indian call centres getting paid £2 per day.   
   )   
      
   >   
   > Get a Mac. Build a PC and install Linux. Or do what I do, and toddle   
   > happily along on a venerable copy of Win98 and "legacy" software.   
   > I'll be fucked if I'm paying about a thousand quid for this Vista   
   > thing or whatever it's called. I don't need it, so I won't buy it. If   
   > they drop the price to around 50 quid, I might try it. That's how the   
   > market works.   
   >   
      
   I don't need Vista (no-one does, until the DirectX 10 games start coming   
   out) but I do need XP since most of my software is Windows-only, I had   
   98 and found it to be terminally unstable, and Win2000 doesn't like my   
   hardware.   
      
   > It really isn't Bill Gates' fault that there's one born every minute.   
   >   
      
   No, but if I was running a business I'd like to think I'd charge *fair*   
   prices. So that *everyone* could afford my products, including the   
   people on, say, Income Support.   
      
   --   
   --   
   * I always hope for the best. Experience, unfortunately, has taught me   
   to expect the worst.   
      
   Yahoo: evilbill_agqx   
   Web: http://www.evilbill.org.uk   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)