similarly, why is company A investing so much time and money into something that can just be coppied at little to no cost.

that's equivalent to company A spending millions / billions on getting the "perfect pencil grip", and then is surprised when they don't make a return on their investment. its not up to the consumers or competitors to ensure a company returns a profit, that is the sole responsibility of the company trying to turn a profit.

what? i've earnt myself quite a lot of money and haven't patented anything, in fact, patents stop my ability to build unique, company specific software as easily as i would have been otherwise... with patents the value of the work gets distributed to some lucky individuals, leaving a lot less for the MAJORITY of developers.

PATENTS ARE COUNTER PRODUCTIVE TO OUR INDUSTRY. don't you dare suggest its the only think keeping it alive.

true, but significant value of the product is in the brand name, not the functionality of the product, but again, thats hardly abnormal either.

i'm not sure how this is relevant to anything in the original discussion though.

wtf? no they don't, food isn't subject to copyright or patents. in fact I'm pretty sure its specifically excluded.

but, then that would be freedom of association,

they need to be able to treat you like all the other violent protestors because you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, its that simple. its an "us vs them" mentality that is doing nothing but growing between the police and the public.

always has been though, hasn't it?

What The Fuck... what is wrong with you America? how did you let it get so bad?

or company B has paid company A some money to ensure that companys B spam mail always makes it to the destination.

that's a very good point, almost entirely invalidated by the EULA of "you don't own the software, you've purchased access to it" if that didn't stand up in court then modifying the DRM wouldn't be illegal (hell, modifying the software wouldn't be illegal).

Don't get me wrong, i don't think it should be this way, but that's the way it is.

4 machines pay for themselves if running for 24 hours a day at optimal capacity with no faults, could, theoretically pay for themselves in a year or so. and that is certainly what our sales reps used to tell our future clients.

OR, a casheer that pays itself back in the first week, is much more flexible and fault tolerant and has a higher return on investment in the short and medium term.

no, the machines do take brakes (they aren't being used 24 x 7), don't work from open to close without significant human intervention, and do indeed take days of to get things repaired and replaced. this is the same with all robots.

a 24 hour store in Australia is almost always manned by 1 or 2 staff, who also pack the shelves, order stock, do receiving, sweep the floor, assist customers etc, so a 24 hour store is a bad comparison example. 1 machine would be enough, but again, its wasted funds as a large amount of time the staff are manning the shop is idle time anyway and largely to supervise the customers if there are any.

i'll try and be clearer. 4 machines can do the volume of work that paying a full time employee can (that is, full time hours), however those 4 machines also need a staff member to supervise their function (although 1 staff member can supervise close to 10 machines). and having something wrong with 1 out of 8 machines is pretty typical as there are a lot moving parts and monkeys are hardly a gentle species. so that's a minimum of 9 machines working full time to have a net gain of 1 staff member.

maintenance on 9 machines is more than the $15k a year the staff member is probably worth, and the staff can go and collect trollies when its quiet, instead of just collecting dust.

for a 24 hour store to purchase just one device (which will require supervision anyway) for $30k + $5k maintenance before any work is done for them, compared to paying someone $500 for every week they show up to work. if you sell out, you're not automatically down $30k to someone who is going to tear out your infrastructure and replace it with their own anyway because back office systems aren't compatible with the competitors register systems. Turnover for your typical mom and pop store isn't really enough to justify spending over $30k + $5k ongoing costs for a machine that's slower and less flexible than existing staff, and with a value that depreciates, as a long term solution to staffing.

self-checkout is a false economy anyway. you simply can't get the velocity through them that you could with a single cashier, they cost more in maintenance and upkeep (an array of 4 self checkouts has the performance equivalent to 1 cashier), but the self checkout system costs about $30k per unit, then with ongoing support costs and maintenance. it will take a good 10 years before the self checkout makes money back for the company (and by the 10 years, they will need to be replaced to maintain the competitive edge anyway.)

Self checkouts are a convenience to your customers, not suppose to increase the bottom dollar. but it means people are more likely to pick up pregnancy tests in your supermarket then driving for 15miles out to a gas station so they don't have to face someone they know, it also gives the impression that wait times are less (waiting until interaction is less, but total time spent at shops tends to be higher, which also tends to influence how much you purchase.).

source: myself, i work in retail supporting the machines.

exactly, 1 thing that humans are incredible at, is being flexible. Robots won't be able to compete with that for a very long time.

and IT & maintaining the robot infrastructure take over the world! I knew I was in the right industry.

i never used proxies, mostly because i do go through and read the license and user agreement, realize that it offers no real protection (as they specifically state in the user agreement that they will hand over info to the authorities and maintain logs for x amount of days and keep IP access logs Indefinably as required).

Proxies are fine if your trying to hide stuff from your local administrator or spouse, but for anything you want to hid from "the man" then make sure the guys you are hiding through don't pay taxes.