I'm just observing, although not an uncommon observation, that technology companies that are providing services for the general public are gettin really cheap.

Remember Nintendo. It came with the system, not 1, but 2 controllers. It came with a gun, Super Mario Brothers, Duck Hunt. There was RCA connectors, RF connectors, and a power pack.

Then, it evolved over time just RCA connectors, 1 controller, and 1 game.

Computers would come with word processing software, antivirus, floppy drives, cd players, etc. Now, they cut the floppy drives (they are obsolete, I agree). The software is now all trial versions. Low level chips. RAM which is bottom of the barrell.

Cell phones came with a power cord and cradle., holster, even an earbud. I just picked up my new LG VX8100. I got a dinky power adapter, no cradle, no holster, and no headset. Everything costs addition bucks.

i'd agree with that. $200+ for an iPod with headphones. then you have to buy all the music to make it worthwhile.

Gotta agree, I mean, I bought a £250 guitar amplifier, brand new. It didn't even come with a power lead! What the fuck was with that.

Oh..buying accessories like printers, and now they don't include printer cables (USB now..)

Yeah I was kinda pissed at having to run out and buy a USB cable because they're too cheap to bundle them... my CD player didn't come with a power adapter, either

pretty soon cell phones won't even come with chargers

I do agree. When i bought my first inkjet printer from staples quite a few years ago, i couldnt believe that the salesguy said i needed an LPT cable because they didnt come with the printer. As much as i'd like to go 100% against this, i won't. In the case of DangerousDave's guitar amp, a more serious musician who knows about electric line filtering might have replaced the standard cable with one with a line/noise filter so the amp works properly. Floppy drives i could care less about, but you still need them. It's the easiest way to send files to people still. Flash drives are too expensive to just be giving to people and not expecting them back. Zip drives went to shit nearly a year after their release. And i still feel guilty about burning a CD-R for just one or 2 files.

I agree about most things. Floppy drives are dead...

But Zip drives lasted for a long time. I still have a drive floating aorund somewhere.

Plus, flash media drives are now becoming common on computers

Oh, i still hav/use zip drives occasionally. But 100MB disks easily cost 10$ each. And for say a 128MB flash drive, that's gotta be 20-30$ still. It's just too expensive to be used loosely (like to give a friend or co-worker a copy of a Word document) Sure, if they give the drive back, then great, but floppies are so cheap nobody really cares if they get lost or never returned.

Which leads me back to the topic: How come floppy disks i bought with software on them nearly 10 years ago have less bad sectors/errors than the ones i bought a month ago?

More money can be made if people buy the accessories separately. Why pass up an opportunity to make more money?

Because if you do it enough people will stop buying the product altogether and you end up losing all your money.

mp3 players are now NOT including the AC adapter charger, and saying that u can charge via USB. the fucks that?

In regards to your first set of remarks, my company was having a discount on their old logo-bearing merchandise, so I picked up ten 128 MB flash drives for $12 a piece! I'll probably have a giveaway for one at some point in the future too.

As for your second set of remarks, there's simply been a breakdown in quality control since floppies are no longer a mainstream technology. 10 years ago they were still a very popular medium, so they needed to retain higher-quality levels. However, since that's no longer the case, they've let things slip for those places that still manufacture them. Someday the same thing will happen to CD-Rs.

True... my year-old floppy drive just s*** itself, while the one in my grandma's Tandy still works

Hahahahah go radio shack.. damn...

my one main beef with companies and money comes from verizon wireless. buy a bluetooth phone and you have to hack the phone to get all the features. fucking getitnow is stupid. i want to send files to my phone from my computer, not buy every new ringtone and wallpaper. that's why bluetooth is COOL. not because you can have a wireless headset.

HAHA. That is EXACTLY where this all started. I just bought the vx8100, and I am now adding ringtones, (annoyingly), but because the stupid thing wont allow you to have Mp3s on your miniSD card as ringtones. EVERYTHING has to be via get it now.

I want to hack the buttons so I can reporgram them.

OK..no more off topic.

Yea, Verizon did not include a holster. or a cradle.... or any features.

Surprisingly, my SoHo came with a belt clip...
GetItNow sucks ass, and cell phone companies don't know how to properly program the buttons. On my phone, UP is contacts (Who starts off going up their list?), RIGHT is Axcess Apps, DOWN is my browser, and LEFT is my "Custom" menu

What gave you that idea? I can use any mp3 I want to be a ringtone. However I choose not so since all mp3's are over 30 sec and its pointless having ringtones over 30 sec.

Using a data cable and a couple of programs like bitpim and QPST you can easily use tones on your sd card as ringtones. I dont even bother with get it now. Right now I have about 150 mp3's, the entire season 4 of family guy and around 35-40 ringtones on my mini sd card.

Right, you use BitPim. (I don't know QPST). But by default, Verizon doesn't permit it.

I want to reprogram a couple buttons.

Anyway..we digress. There was something else about Verizon. 2 years ago, even 1 year ago, they would transfer the contacts from one phone to another. Not anymore..they charge $10 for it.

It's all about cutting costs. Who cares about the consumer. Companies need to get more profitable to compete for the stockholders of they will take their money away and invest it in other companies. It really sux, but that's what corporations are about. That is the sad truth.

I dont really think so, its hardly a proffesional amp, £250 doesn't buy a lot in guitar amplification. Even Marshall's in the same price range would come with a power lead, I don't know how good/bad your power supplies to your homes are in America, but here nobody worries about surges or anything really.. all the amp need was a standard PC style power lead, they really were just being cheap.

Well, yeah, 250 isn't much. Here in the good old US of A, electricity is hardly reliable. I've seen ground hum, line spikes, interference from other devices on the circuit, and even harmonic phase problems (here we use AC, i think it's DC in Europe for some reason) ruin good performances/recording sessions. It's worse when it's a live performance and the theater's speaker system starts humming because the electric company provides poor service. My grandmother's lost 2 TV sets to power surges and has had her power go out for hours at a time. Cable service is another problem i won't even get into now.

Fair enough qA, Electricity is AC over here too, damn 50hz hum will try and get anywhere! Generally theres no interference from any other devices, but leakage of AC hum is fairly common.