Apple= Evil

AsSiMiLaTeD

Hey Al, got your PM and will give you a call this week and see if I can assist further.

The photos inside messages is an intentional design decision. Those are kept separate so that deleting a photo inside the photos app doesn't then delete it from the conversation. The choice comes down to either people having potential duplicate photos OR having someone delete a photo in one place and then unknowingly having it disappear from another, having been in some of those discussions now (although that particular decision was made long before I joined) they're pretty much always going to choose the safer route even if it's an inconvenience because the alternative would be much worse for most people. What they missed on this one though is adding the ability to easily delete all those photos from a thread, so they need to fix that and add a 'clear all' button.

Note I said iTunes SEEMS odd. In fact it's a very efficient way to manage and sync your library once you understand the library approach vs the older file system approach. That being said, I'm running on a Mac and my understanding is that iTunes is still not great on the Windows platform. All that being said, if you're not syncing your music then there's really no need to use iTunes at all, especially once you convert to iCloud (if you're on iCloud and don't sync music directly there's no reason to ever plug your phone into a computer).

If you think iTunes is confusing you should take a look at Roon, I picked it up a couple weeks ago and it is whipping my ****

mhardy6647

Here's a handy checklist:

Apple: evil
Microsoft: evil
Google: evil
Facebook: evil
eBay: evil
PayPal: evil
Tesla: probably evil
SpaceX: depends on Tesla
Uber: evil and kinda stupid (wait, maybe that's just the founder)
Lyft: who knows?
NFL: evil
NCAA: effing evil

Mikey081057

You forgot oil companies and chemical companies... So how much does Apple charge for additional 32gb of memory that is worth like $12 ? Price gouging is EVIL but i guess if people will pay it then they deserve it.

Nightfall

Cable companies and their legal monopoly provided by paid lobbying = the most evil of all.

Mikey081057

Good one.... How about Pet Food companies that knowingly hurt poor defenseless animals?

Nightfall

Mikey081057 wrote: »

Good one.... How about Pet Food companies that knowingly hurt poor defenseless animals?

They issue recalls when they know about it.

Mikey081057

Nightfall wrote: »

Mikey081057 wrote: »

Good one.... How about Pet Food companies that knowingly hurt poor defenseless animals?

They issue recalls when they know about it.

They issue recalls after they get notified

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&rlz=1CASMAG_enUS705US705&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=chinese+pet+food+deaths&*

Also VW and Takata.

AsSiMiLaTeD

mhardy6647 wrote: »

Here's a handy checklist:

Apple: evil
Microsoft: evil
Google: evil
Facebook: evil
eBay: evil
PayPal: evil
Tesla: probably evil
SpaceX: depends on Tesla
Uber: evil and kinda stupid (wait, maybe that's just the founder)
Lyft: who knows?
NFL: evil
NCAA: effing evil

That's it? What about Polk, Parasound, Chord, Krell, McIntosh, Denon, Marantz, any company who turns a profit, etc? As long as we have the stock market in this country we'll have pretty much every company that's traded on that market fitting your definition of "evil". That's why I'm not a fan of the stock market, because it "forces" companies into charging pretty much the maximum that people will pay for their products.

Mikey081057

What about this guy?

mhardy6647

so -- the smiley after my laundry list was meant to convey facetiousness.

Pretty much all for-profit entities are equally "evil" -- or equally "not evil", depending on one's perspective.



EDIT: Oh, and by the way -- the word facetiously is unique in the English language (at least to my knowledge) in that it contains all of the vowels in alphabetical order. Even the "sometimes y".

mhardy6647

heh -- speaking of Tesla

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/03/business/tesla-ford-general-motors-stock-market.html

In market capitalization, second only to GM of all auto manufacturers.
The future is electric and self-driving, apparently.

tonyb

AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »

mhardy6647 wrote: »

Here's a handy checklist:

Apple: evil
Microsoft: evil
Google: evil
Facebook: evil
eBay: evil
PayPal: evil
Tesla: probably evil
SpaceX: depends on Tesla
Uber: evil and kinda stupid (wait, maybe that's just the founder)
Lyft: who knows?
NFL: evil
NCAA: effing evil

That's it? What about Polk, Parasound, Chord, Krell, McIntosh, Denon, Marantz, any company who turns a profit, etc? As long as we have the stock market in this country we'll have pretty much every company that's traded on that market fitting your definition of "evil". That's why I'm not a fan of the stock market, because it "forces" companies into charging pretty much the maximum that people will pay for their products.

Uh.....not quite. Nobody is forced into anything. When a company goes public, on the stock market, they have a responsibility to the stock holders. It's always YOUR choice to pay what ever price they ask for their products.

Second, YOU have a choice also to participate in that stock, building your own personal wealth. We call that investment.....without it companies would not be as big or plentiful and you would not make the same money you do today.

What is inherently evil is excess greed, excess regulations and lobbying that stymie's competition and protects markets. Which in turn offers price protection for some companies and gives them a green light to basically charge what they want. What do you think lobbyist do ? They pay legislators to protect their turf. To create laws that keep competition out or make it darn hard for anyone to enter their sector of the market.

Business's are in business to make money, and get the most money they can for the product or service they provide. It is always YOUR choice to pay for it or not. When people stop paying higher prices, inventory builds and you have a sale to clear out that inventory, right ?

It's not the stock markets fault, it's yours....

To further the point, you yourself are a marketable product when you go job hunting. Do you not want to get the most you can for your talents ? Or do you take the lowest paying job you can find ? The company's, naturally want to pay the lowest they can find for a certain set of skills in the market place. Eventually, something in the middle is the end result.

andrew82

This is a great thread. I love that it's now, somehow, become about economics. I think that Tony and Assimilated are getting at two different phenomenons here.

Stock markets are, essentially, measures of the expected future profits of the companies who choose to float their stock within them. Because the point of a corporation, ostensibly, is to generate maximum value for its owners (whom can be referred to as shareholders), all corporations would want to produce as large a profit as they possibly could. It's very important to point out that this is also, ostensibly, the goal of private corporations, but due to the fact that such corporations have fewer owners (i.e. shareholders), they can choose to sacrifice current/future profit for one reason or another.

That being said, the goal of achieving maximum profit does not mean that all companies would charge the maximum that consumers would pay for a given item in a given market, all else equal. Rather, companies focus on a variety of strategies to achieve their goal. It's just as likely that a certain corporation could generate more profit by producing a variety of products and selling them at a lower markup than by producing a few products and selling them at a very high mark-up, as Apple does. Price is both a reflection of the cost of production and of product differentiation.

Anyway. It's complicated. To sum it up: corporations are designed to make profit irrespective of ownership, the stock market is not the cause of this, and profit maximization is not dependent on selling something at highest price at which someone would buy it.

tonyb

Anyway. It's complicated. To sum it up: corporations are designed to make profit irrespective of ownership, the stock market is not the cause of this, and profit maximization is not dependent on selling something at highest price at which someone would buy it.


Exactly.....you can make a profit selling pencils, doesn't mean they will cost 10 bucks a shot. Introducing competition into the marketplace always results in lower costs to the consumer.

Now think of area's we DON'T have competition and the related cost to consumer.

Healthcare
Cable TV
Utilities....until recently anyway.
Drugs

Just to name a few. In Apple's case though, they can charge almost anything because they have a product people are willing to pay for. Key word is "willing", your choice. People stop paying those prices and what do you think will happen when next years model comes out ? Apple isn't the great evil for selling a product people want and will pay for. YOU are....for paying it. Least when pricing over weighs the value to you.

This is how capitalism works, a free exchange of product or services between parties for money. Both parties agree, I'll give you x dollars for your product, you give me that product. The only way that exchange can happen is if both parties agree. Stop agreeing, and prices will come down....so will quality along with it I'd imagine.

afterburnt

Nightfall wrote: »

Mikey081057 wrote: »

Good one.... How about Pet Food companies that knowingly hurt poor defenseless animals?

They issue recalls when they know about it.

In China they execute CEO's that do that.

afterburnt

AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »

mhardy6647 wrote: »

Here's a handy checklist:

Apple: evil
Microsoft: evil
Google: evil
Facebook: evil
eBay: evil
PayPal: evil
Tesla: probably evil
SpaceX: depends on Tesla
Uber: evil and kinda stupid (wait, maybe that's just the founder)
Lyft: who knows?
NFL: evil
NCAA: effing evil

That's it? What about Polk, Parasound, Chord, Krell, McIntosh, Denon, Marantz, any company who turns a profit, etc? As long as we have the stock market in this country we'll have pretty much every company that's traded on that market fitting your definition of "evil". That's why I'm not a fan of the stock market, because it "forces" companies into charging pretty much the maximum that people will pay for their products.

Why would they charge less than what the market will bare?

afterburnt

Elon Musk is evil incarnate

Nightfall

nbrowser wrote: »

James Hetfield asked himself once, "Am I evil?" to which he replied "Yes I am". So in fact, James Hetfield is evil!

That's a Diamond Head song. James only asked himself a question that somebody else already asked. Pffft. Posers.

tonyb

afterburnt wrote: »

is evil incarnate

Now why would you say that ? He's a visionary don'tcha know. lol

....or is it this ?
http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/videos/elon-musk-wants-to-plant-computers-in-human-brains-to-prevent-an-ai-uprising/vp-BBz7Tdh

I guess his new startup is geared towards creating Cyborgs, like in Star Trek. Didn't work out too well for them as I recall.

Musk in my view, is one of the many dudes with more money than he knows what to do with. Guys like him, in his position tend to get a God complex, meaning they like to use their money and influence to change the world to their perceived notions of how it should be. History is full of such people, and it never turns out well for the general population.

mhardy6647

Epimenides the Cretan (not "cretin"!) once said "All Cretans are liars".

True, or fake news?

mhardy6647

Imagine you're in the military. A superior approaches you and gives the following command:

Disobey this command.

What to do? What to do?

mhardy6647

I never met a paradox I didn't like.

Paradoxex

afterburnt wrote: »

AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »

mhardy6647 wrote: »

Here's a handy checklist:

Apple: evil
Microsoft: evil
Google: evil
Facebook: evil
eBay: evil
PayPal: evil
Tesla: probably evil
SpaceX: depends on Tesla
Uber: evil and kinda stupid (wait, maybe that's just the founder)
Lyft: who knows?
NFL: evil
NCAA: effing evil

That's it? What about Polk, Parasound, Chord, Krell, McIntosh, Denon, Marantz, any company who turns a profit, etc? As long as we have the stock market in this country we'll have pretty much every company that's traded on that market fitting your definition of "evil". That's why I'm not a fan of the stock market, because it "forces" companies into charging pretty much the maximum that people will pay for their products.

Why would they charge less than what the market will bare?

To be clear I think Assimilated was responding to the post by Mikey about price gouging being evil. That's a slippery slope. You either blame the company or the consumer for empowering the company.

tonyb wrote: »

Now think of area's we DON'T have competition and the related cost to consumer.

Healthcare

Unlike the other areas you named, there is not the same barrier to entry for providing healthcare.

Cable TV: Bandwidth on the radio spectrum, until most recently
Utilities: Controlled by local and state government - can't have multiple power lines to the same house
Drugs: R&D costs are daunting for investors, despite the pay dirt being lucrative

So why aren't there more companies competing for business? I think there are several reasons, two big ones are:

1. Insurance companies have to be large to reach critical mass: You have to enroll a lot of people to create an insurance pool of value to your consumers. You need sick and healthy people so the sick people aren't just paying their actual costs, and the healthy people feel like they are getting some value even if they don't get sick.

2. Healthcare Insurers don't have the ability to set prices: People focus on the exchanges and they harp on the insurance companies. These companies are conduits to healthcare, not determinants of it. Their prices and coverage are set by negotiations with hospitals and provider networks that have the leverage to demand incredibly high prices for their services. UnitedHealthcare is huge, but it has to pay Baylor Health system top dollar for its services, because if United doesn't have it in its network, people are likely to not enroll because Baylor is well-known in several key areas. Thus it is the hospital that can push the price up effectively, instead of the insurer pushing the price down.

Consumers don't think about health insurance as limiting their access to hospitals. Furthermore, hospitals get this leverage because as rational as people try to be when they are healthy, when it is you or your wife needing treatment, people abandon their cost-effectiveness arguments, willingly seeking six figure treatments for an additional chance, no matter how bleak, at beating death.

Rarely do you hear people weighing costs in front of the aggrieved. This is why just askiing, "What is the cost of life?" feels so dirty.

afterburnt

tonyb wrote: »

afterburnt wrote: »

is evil incarnate

Now why would you say that ? He's a visionary don'tcha know. lol

....or is it this ?
http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/videos/elon-musk-wants-to-plant-computers-in-human-brains-to-prevent-an-ai-uprising/vp-BBz7Tdh

I guess his new startup is geared towards creating Cyborgs, like in Star Trek. Didn't work out too well for them as I recall.

Musk in my view, is one of the many dudes with more money than he knows what to do with. Guys like him, in his position tend to get a God complex, meaning they like to use their money and influence to change the world to their perceived notions of how it should be. History is full of such people, and it never turns out well for the general population.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-20150531-story.html

tonyb

You mean we hand out our hard earned tax revenue to already super rich people ? Now tell us something we don't know...lol.

Heaven forbid, 4 billion is just a spit in the bucket compared to a 4 trillion budget, but I'm pretty sure....ok, mostly sure.....no, pretty effin' sure, some schools somewhere could use that money, or veterans, seniors, kids with disabilities, infrastructure, and the list can go on.

I'm not against anyone being rich, just anyone who already has more money than they could spend thinking they have a right to the public trough......and those who allow it.

mhardy6647

afterburnt wrote: »

...

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-20150531-story.html

Bankrobber Willie Sutton was famously asked why he robbed banks.

His reply?

Because that's where the money is.

Now it's the 21st Century, and Mr. Musk knows where the money is.

afterburnt

Yup it's in the pockets of the next few generations. And they don't even have pockets yet

tonyb

Paradoxex wrote: »

afterburnt wrote: »

AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »

mhardy6647 wrote: »

Here's a handy checklist:

Apple: evil
Microsoft: evil
Google: evil
Facebook: evil
eBay: evil
PayPal: evil
Tesla: probably evil
SpaceX: depends on Tesla
Uber: evil and kinda stupid (wait, maybe that's just the founder)
Lyft: who knows?
NFL: evil
NCAA: effing evil

That's it? What about Polk, Parasound, Chord, Krell, McIntosh, Denon, Marantz, any company who turns a profit, etc? As long as we have the stock market in this country we'll have pretty much every company that's traded on that market fitting your definition of "evil". That's why I'm not a fan of the stock market, because it "forces" companies into charging pretty much the maximum that people will pay for their products.

Why would they charge less than what the market will bare?

To be clear I think Assimilated was responding to the post by Mikey about price gouging being evil. That's a slippery slope. You either blame the company or the consumer for empowering the company.

tonyb wrote: »

Now think of area's we DON'T have competition and the related cost to consumer.

Healthcare

Unlike the other areas you named, there is not the same barrier to entry for providing healthcare.

Cable TV: Bandwidth on the radio spectrum, until most recently
Utilities: Controlled by local and state government - can't have multiple power lines to the same house
Drugs: R&D costs are daunting for investors, despite the pay dirt being lucrative

So why aren't there more companies competing for business? I think there are several reasons, two big ones are:

1. Insurance companies have to be large to reach critical mass: You have to enroll a lot of people to create an insurance pool of value to your consumers. You need sick and healthy people so the sick people aren't just paying their actual costs, and the healthy people feel like they are getting some value even if they don't get sick.

2. Healthcare Insurers don't have the ability to set prices: People focus on the exchanges and they harp on the insurance companies. These companies are conduits to healthcare, not determinants of it. Their prices and coverage are set by negotiations with hospitals and provider networks that have the leverage to demand incredibly high prices for their services. UnitedHealthcare is huge, but it has to pay Baylor Health system top dollar for its services, because if United doesn't have it in its network, people are likely to not enroll because Baylor is well-known in several key areas. Thus it is the hospital that can push the price up effectively, instead of the insurer pushing the price down.

Consumers don't think about health insurance as limiting their access to hospitals. Furthermore, hospitals get this leverage because as rational as people try to be when they are healthy, when it is you or your wife needing treatment, people abandon their cost-effectiveness arguments, willingly seeking six figure treatments for an additional chance, no matter how bleak, at beating death.

Rarely do you hear people weighing costs in front of the aggrieved. This is why just askiing, "What is the cost of life?" feels so dirty.

I'd like to address that, but there is simply too many areas you touched on and that's kind of the problem too, it's a very convoluted system.

In response to,

1.- You absolutely correct in the way health insurance companies work, it is also the same for any insurance company.

2.-While HC insurers don't set prices, they set standards for which they will pay for and also evaluate risks. That's what Actuary's are for. For instance, a doctor can charge you 2k for xyz procedure, but the insurance company will only pay 1.5k. They have essentially set the price themselves for what is an acceptable charge for that service. Your on the hook for the other 5 bones.

If your older, your a higher risk, smoker...drinker, have higher BP or other known ailments, they can and do charge you more because of the higher risk factor. Not saying it's wrong, just the way it is, like life insurance or car insurance.

Everyone in the process has certain regulations to abide by also, federal or state. Some vary state to state too. This adds costs along the way, be it needed or not.

Could we solve #1 and #2 if we just got rid of insurance companies ? I don't know for sure, but I do know some are experimenting with that idea. In another post somewhere, I commented on a doctor group that offers coverage to adults for 50 bucks a month and kids 25 bucks a month for basic care. A family of 4 amounts to 150 bucks a month. You pay that fee every month, have access to xyz doctor group as many times as you like. Kid falls off his bike and breaks an arm, your covered, no paperwork, no deductibles, and prescription meds are 75% off. Granted, your not getting major surgery for that price, but the majority of people go to the doctor for well being issues or emergency room type stuff like broken bones or stitches, dog bites, etc. Insurance companies know this, which is why deductibles are so high, mine is 6k before they pay a penny. The only way I'll ever meet that is if I get attacked by a group of crazed feminists....and their dogs, at the same time. lol

So basically as it sits now, I pay 6k a year in premiums for basically catastrophic care, and all the little stuff I mentioned before is out of pocket to me. with a 6k deductible I'll never reach.

Insurance companies have to make money too, and they have all sorts of formulas and Actuarys that sit around all day crunching numbers that form policy decisions that will enable them to be profitable. That's just how insurance works, but we are the point now that insurance premiums, plus deductibles, co-pays, and things not covered by insurers can send you to the poor house rather quickly if your unfortunate to have bad health.

To top it off, insurance companies are limited on competition so there is little incentive to offer lower prices. Still can't shop for policies outside your state lines or area. Their only incentive for lower prices is to get younger people to sign up.....which as we now found out is still hard to do. Some still want to be able to buy fire insurance while their house is burning down. We shouldn't force people to buy insurance, but we should also hold them accountable for their own well being.

My questions are....

Would Doctors lower their prices if the costs to them were cheaper ? Less paperwork means less employees and their benefits. Competition for the supplies they buy. My own doctor is retiring, says being a doctor isn't the same anymore. He spends 4 hours a day doing paperwork and conforming to regulations and insurance company requests. That's on top of what his staff has to do. Which in turn means, he has less time to see patients and that in turn means he makes less money.

Would a conglomerate of Hospitals and doctor groups be able to offer more affordable care if they combined resources and got rid of the middle man ? Offered policies themselves like in the example I gave ? Some in Canada are experimenting with that exact idea. I think here in Michigan too.

We have to start thinking outside the box, the box created by lobbyists and big corporations is all I'm saying. Those boxes have been in place for a very long time so the will to change them is obviously fought against.

afterburnt

Is saving my soul a health care issue?

codycatalist

I picked myself up an Ipad Pro 9.7 a month or two ago and love it. Use it mostly for music streaming during the day and reading at night (that night mode is awesome). Granted for phones I go android (HTC to be specific) but tablets Apple rules the field. I don't like the dongles needed for this and that or the fact I have to get an apple tv to mirror my screen but that's why I have an android phone for the rest of my connectivity.

IPhones = Dumb
IPads = Best in their class