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:   
   >> 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...   
   >   
   > Then hey, they can't afford it. There are cheaper office suites out   
   > there, much cheaper ones. Strangely, people don't seem to buy them in   
   > huge quantities. The market that can afford Office seems to be large.   
   > If corporate clients can afford $700 per license, MS are free to sell   
   > it at that price. It's the supply and demand thing. You charge what   
   > the market will pay. If they won't pay what you're charging, you have   
   > to lower your price. If the price you need to charge is lower than   
   > the cost of production, you go bankrupt.   
   >   
   > Office is a pretty good product. I tried a couple of alternatives   
   > including Star Office but frankly I just preferred Office, or   
   > particularly Word. That wasn't "I'll try this other thing for 5   
   > minutes", I struggled on with Star Office for ages but in the end had   
   > to admit I wanted to use Word. So I had no choice but to open my   
   > wallet.   
   >   
   > Then close it again and get a copy from someone at work :oD   
   >   
   >> Besides, most people use Windows because they bought a PC that came   
   >> with it preinstalled.   
   >   
   > True, but again we see that people are apparently willing to pay the   
   > Window Tax.   
   >   
      
   People who buy pre-built PCs are usually somewhat computer illiterate,   
   though.  When I buy a new machine, I always specify my own build   
   without an OS.   
      
   >> 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.)   
   >   
   > Not really relevant. In fact, piracy is probably supporting MS's   
   > position in the marketplace. If there were no pirate copies about,   
   > people would have to use alternatives such as Macs (also very   
   > expensive) or Linux, or there'd be an opening for another commercial   
   > OS at a lower price from a competitor. Millions would defect to other   
   > Operating Systems. Software companies would have to produce ports of   
   > their software for these other OSs. Windows would lose market share   
   > and *gasp* have to lower their prices to become competitive.   
   >   
   > As such, everyone using illegal copies of Windows are, bizarrely,   
   > helping the Windows hegemony. Strange thought.   
   >   
      
   You'd think M$ would be less willing to cripple pirate copies of XP   
   then, really. LOL   
      
   >>>> 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?   
   >   
   > That's a straw man. Clearly that'd be unfair and illegal come to   
   > that. But MS and other big companies aren't doing that.   
      
   M$, no. But I've heard of it happening. Hell, a lot of company pensions   
   have gone down the tubes lately while the company directors have gotten   
   off scot-free.   
      
   > I'm not aware   
   > of MS robbing their pension fund. We have Gordon Brown to do that,   
   > remember, anyway. If they're legit companies, it's nobody's business   
   > what they pay their executives.   
   >   
      
   Maybe so, but personally, I think people should be paid for the work   
   they do. A call centre operative does a lot more work than the fatass   
   exec sat in his plushy boardroom all day drinking coffee and bandying   
   management jargon back and forth with other fatass execs.    
      
   >>   
   >> Tell that to the people in Indian call centres getting paid £2 per   
   >> day. ;)   
   >   
   > Unfair comparison- wages in different nations aren't comparable.   
   >   
      
   Not usually, no. But I might note that call dentre operatives in India   
   still don't have the standard of living a call centre operative here   
   might have. (Hell, most of them don't have the standard of living that   
   someone on *welfare* would have here...)   
      
   >>   
   >> I don't need Vista (no-one does, until the DirectX 10 games start   
   >> coming out)   
   >   
   > ...so you're prepared to pay for games but won't pay for the OS to run   
   > them???   
   >   
      
   You can buy 10 games for the price of one XP CD. ;) Most of my games   
   I've had for a very long time, anyway.   
      
   >> but I do need XP since most of my software is   
   >> Windows-only, I had 98 and found it to be terminally unstable,   
   >   
   > I've always liked it. It's very stable on the machines I've used it   
   > on. Reports of instabilities of OSs seem very dependent on the people   
   > and machines involved.   
      
   When I had 98, sometimes it wouldn't last two *hours* on a fresh install   
   without bluescreening, and I had to reinstall every couple of months.   
   And that was without hardware or driver problems. XP on this machine   
   lasts significantly longer than that even though I *do* have some   
   problems with my hardware, LOL   
      
   > I've got XP on my backup machine. Can't stand   
   > it, especially all the hand-holding. That fucking networking wizard   
   > that keeps asking me if I'm in the family room (whatever that is?)   
   > and turning the goddamned firewall on "for my own protection". It   
   > does loads of things I don't need and nothing that I need that 98SE   
   > doesn't, except support very big hard disks, which is why it's on   
   > there.   
   >   
      
   I turn all the extra newbie-fodder stuff off, first thing I do on a new   
   XP install. My router's got an inbuilt firewall and I always switch to   
   the Windows 'Classic' (Win2000) look as soon as I've installed my   
   graphics drivers.    
      
   Many of my games won't run on 98, anyway.   
      
   >> and   
   >> Win2000 doesn't like my hardware.   
   >   
   > :(   
   >   
      
   Yeah, it gets to the Detecting hardware stage of setup, spontaneously   
   reboots, and goes round over again. Never made it past that point on   
   this rig.   
      
   >>   
   >> 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.   
   >   
   > That's not how pricing in a market economy works, as I'm sure you're   
   > aware :)   
   >   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)