OT: Windows is too expensive

[Captain Kwok]

I'm not a software expert or anything, but I figure that if a PC game costs about $50 or so - then it's not so far fetched to believe an OS might cost a couple times more than that? After all, I'm sure it's a resource intensive project to co-ordinate and program etc... and it's not like their programmers are working for free.

[Jack Simth]

geoschmo said:
Well, in a suposedly free-market economy like we have I wouldn't say charging too much for software would be an issue of ethics. It's not as if there aren't alternatives, and even if their weren't it's not a neccesary item, it's a luxury. It's not like I'm starving and they are gouging me cause they are the only source of food.

It just doesn't seem all that rational. Their pricing and other business practices are doing more towards strengthening their competitors then anything else. I guess when companies get on top they lose the long term view that allowed them to get where they are in the first place.

Corporations are curious things.

They're legally required to make as much money as possible. If one of their investors finds out that a decision maker wasted money (whether that was by buying a company helicopter and hiring a pilot for his exclusive use so he can go island-hopping in the Bahamas or passing up a lucrative business opportunity) the investor can, no joke, sue the decision maker for the difference it was thought to have made in the investor's portfolio (there's some caveats, check with a lawyer if you're interested, but essentially, that's what can happen). Successfully, even, either collectively or individually.

This is part of the reason a lot of corporations are going private, nowadays.

So suppose we have a corporation - Macrohard, say - that has a very large portion of the market. Macrohard makes stuff - an operating system, call it Doors; and a document suite, call it Business. Macrohard has a huge market share. They dominate. Because they are so large and ingrained, they can do things nobody else can, that make them money faster.

Suppose, for instance, you're a business trying to avoid Macrohard's stuff. You've got a problem; most, if not all, of your suppliers and clients are using Business. You need to be able to successfully read the documents your suppliers and clients send you, and you need to be able to send your clients and suppliers documents that they can read. If all Business files are in a proprietary Macrohard format, you pretty much need something from Macrohard to read it. They distribute a free reader program to be in compliance with Fair Use, but it only runs on one of the last X versions of Doors, and it will not permit you to write documents in Business format to distribute. In order to communicate effectively with your suppliers and clients, you're kinda forced to get a version of Doors and Business; you're either in Business, or you're out of business in short order.

Now, suppose, a new version of Business comes out. It comes bundled with most new computers, and some of your suppliers and customers upgrade as they are getting new machines anyway. Macrohard has inserted some new features, though, and Business 2.0 files can't be read by Business 1.0 software (without your clients and suppliers going through a few hoops; Business 2.0 can write Business 1.0 files if you remember to tell it to do so, although it will goof the formatting every here and there, leading to miscommunications at times). Business 2.0 will usually read Business 1.0 files successfully... but it will get the formatting wrong every here and there, leading to miscommunications at times. As your suppliers and customers are now using Business 2.0 format, after a while, you find that in order to communicate effectively with your clients and suppliers, you need Business 2.0... or you're out of business. Macrohard has the capacity to very nearly force you to upgrade every so often, without breaking any laws at all. Every time you upgrade, you have to pay Macrohard a fee for the new licenses.

As Macrohard is a corporation, the decision-makers can be sued if they don't make as much money as they can. As most of the Macrohard decision-makers are also major investors, and making as much money as they can not only makes them money, but prevents them from being sued, what do you think they are going to do?

[GuyOfDoom]

The moral of the story is Corporations are evil.

[Fyron]

Which, of course, is inherently wrong. There is nothing intrinsically evil about corporations. Most businesses in the US are, in fact, corporations (particularly of the LLC variety). So unless you want to say every small business is evil...

[Jack Simth]

GuyOfDoom said:
The moral of the story is Corporations are evil.

No. But the rules of the game are set up to push them in that direction. Probably not deliberately.

[GuyOfDoom]

Jack Simth said:

No. But the rules of the game are set up to push them in that direction. Probably not deliberately.

Capitalism is based on the fact that consumers can control businesses by a feedback loop in purchasing. The problem is most of the larger corporations now days can control that feedback loop by limiting or eliminating the flow of the key information which would affect that feedback loop. Capitalism is the "best" economic model out there right now, but it's flawed to it's very core.

[Renegade 13]

Any economic system is subject to being manipulated by those with greater power than the majority. This will be true as long as people are motivated by personal gain rather than the good of the many (ie: forever).

[AgentZero]

Of course, if we were all CEOs, we'd see no problem with this model whatsoever. Or would we? There's only one way to find out. We must all be made CEOs as part of a great social experiment! And of course we'd have to be allowed to keep all the money we embez- er... invest. It's only fair.

[Baron Munchausen]

AgentZero said:
Heh, sorry about the confusion, Geo. When I saw the disclaimer I jumped to the conclusion that they wanted receipts before they'd sell you an OEM copy, since nowhere does it say anything about a Vista upgrade. Thank goodness we have Fyron around to slap Newegg CS about and find out what they're really on about.

Now if he'd just slap MS around and make them give us better license terms...

[geoschmo]

Well, I will say this about Linux. It may be that there are comparable programs out there for everyhting I need, but it's not always the easiest thing to get them loaded and running.

I sure am spoiled by Windows. You find a program, install it and it runs. I'm a moderatly techie individual and I'm findign it diffecult to get thigs setup in Ubuntu. Everything's got six lines of commands you have to type into the command line terminal, and even then maybe it won't work. I've been working on getting a wireless adapter setup for a few hours now and it's just not flying. I've found instructions in several places on the web, all of them with minor differences, and none of them seem to work.

I know the same thing would happen if I tried to plug non-supported hardware with windows, but it's still frusterating. The biggest problem I seem to be running into is there is just so much information out there it's tough to filter out those that know what they are talking about.