Tag: expensive

Outrageously expensive computer stuff

For quite a while now, I’ve had some trouble with the adapter for my iBook. I’ve been getting really fed up with all that mess. It takes maybe ten minutes every time I start up the computer to get the green (or orange) light to come on.

Then finally I thought I’d get a new one. I looked at some websites and once I finally found the right one, I realized to my horror that it costs over 80 US dollars!

Ok, don’t say it. You probably think I can blame myself for getting a Mac. But I really think it’s worth the higher price, except when the adapter is acting up. For instance, I’m going to buy extra RAM. That’s expensive too, but I think that with all the extra capacity you get out of the computer, it’s worth it.

I really don’t know what Steve Jobs is thinking. Didn’t it ever occur to him that it’s the volume that generates the profit, not the high prices?

Now I’ll be getting some duct tape and each time it takes me ten minutes or more to fiddle with the computer, I’ll be thinking of the eighty bucks I’m saving.

Expensive unfair technology

Everything that is wrong in society today isn’t gender- or species directed.

For instance the entertainment industry. TV, the internet, Walkman cell phones with or without 3G. All that costs money, and more and more so every day. The normal evolution of technology is that things get cheaper, not more expensive. But nowadays it isn’t the purchase that is the greatest expense – except when it comes to the newest products – it’s using them.

Electricity costs. More and each year, naturally. The power companies set their prices any way they like. Here in Sweden, which, in case you didn’t know it, is a very dark and cold country, we need electricity, or we’ll die. The tv license, internet connections and cell phone plans cost money. Of course, it’s true that nothing is completely free. But in my opinion, the record- and moviecompanies and distributors are just the same as the power companies. They set their own prices and conditions.

Copy protection that sometimes destroys the device you play the CD or DVD on, and which stops you from making a backup copy. Those discs are extortionately expensive, so naturally you want to make sure you don’t lose it. Besides, how many people like to drag their CD and DVD collections to their summer houses? If you’ve paid that much, you should have the right to make one copy. As long as you don’t make money from selling pirated copies, you should have the right to do what you like with what you’ve bought and paid for.

It’s being said that consumers nowadays only want their music and movies downloadable. Perhaps that’s true. I don’t anyway. Not exclusively. I want to own a CD or DVD so that I can listen to whenever I like. Digital formats can vanish in a second. They only work as long as your device for playing them works.

Today, computers, phones, tv sets, CD and DVD players and music players of all kinds are deliberately being manufactured in such a way that they will break within a couple of years. So that the consumer will have to buy another one regularly. Everything is expensive and keeps getting more expensive if all those expensive things have to be thrown out and you have to buy new ones every second or third year.