Duopoly problem.
$98 billion just in fees... talk about dragging down the economy.
So the credit card model of making money on the interest against my loan is not enough? They also need to take a cut of the transaction from the merchant for the privilege to allow customers to easily take out more loan money to for the CC company to make more money from increased or revolving loan amount?

How hard would it be to create a mandatory open processing standard for point of sales terminals to accept any secure card that meets the standard? Then the cards can compete on features and services.

I can hardly wait to subscribe to Mac OS on whatever hardware/platform I'd like too! /sarcasm

This is part of my main gripe with Apple. Simply put from Apple, "A 'walled garden' of both hardware and software is the only way to protect and provide the best experience for users". Except it wasn't and isn't. iTunes was allowed on Windows to sync iPODs, pretty much from day one, because money. They knew there was no way potential customers were going to switch to MACs to simply own an iPOD; they had to tap the Windows market or continue to struggle. Being able to steal digital music was also a key component. And because of that, we now have the success of Apple mobile hardware and streaming services, all because of a more open, cross compatibility approach to get iPods into the market.

AppleTV was only on their hardware until their hardware wasn't selling as well as the likes of Roku and AndroidTV by a wide enough margin. And when iPhone and iPAD sales are not what the used to be, Apple TV is on Roku, AndroidTV et. al., to increase the subscriber base to generate more money. At the end of the day, it's all about the money, not their ethos of design or experience or whatever else they claim.

The real lesson here is: the "walled garden" approach will only get you so far.

Good for the UK!

I only wish so many people in the U.S. didn't believe it's their god given right to create mountains of plastic trash or fuel their cars with "recycled dinosaurs".

Lego is starting to switch away from their plastic packaging, but their manuals are still a problem. All too often, they use too many pages for steps that could have easily been printed on a single page. While their core product is made of plastic, I can't ever remember when I intentionally threw a single Lego in the trash going back to the 1980s.

Cannon: Reset!

Inigo Montoya: I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Write your documentation or how-to's as soon as you can. That way you don't forget something,or misinterpret or loose notes.

Why do regulators/governments allow companies to do these sorts of things? Here's what I mean:

Company is faced with regulation or some such.

Company offers to give government about 10% of what government wants with a self-governing/enforced non-binding agreement.

Government accepts non-binding agreement.

Company violates non-binding agreement.

Repeat process.

What would the internet be like without typos?

While "integrated communications" is a selling point, it is still proof of their ability to shout out competitors due to their pricing structure and first party knowledge, i.e. monopoly powers. If "integrated communications" alone was the real selling point, you wouldn't see companies ripping out multi-million dollar competitor solutions if the annual cost of Teams was comparable, i.e. Teams rollout not subsidized Existing MS Office applications and email revenue. They were able to get corporations to "try Teams" because of the 2020 pandemic and "it's free".

"Teams comes with Windows 11" is direct to consumer/regular people; it easy for them to not use Teams. When the bean counters and MBAs, tell IT that Teams is the cheapest option and is "good enough" because you're "already paying for it with Office", that's when you see M$'s monopolistic powers in action.

Many businesses need/want Exchange/Outlook and Excel; M$ knows this. So, M$ uses monopoly-like powers to install or offer products as a "bundle" at prices competitors with a narrower offering cannot match. Outlook and Excel desktop apps are still probably the driving factor for Windows OS usage as well, for business deployments. "Teams is free with O365" is why a company I know is trying to minimize or eliminate their entire Cisco voice and WebEx footprint. The only real problem is old copper telephone lines, some emergency phone regulations and a call directory.

I have often been down voted for bringing this up, now a very large government points out M$'s unfair bundling tactics. I hope they review decoupling Windows desktop OS license as well.

It's quite annoying that Comcast/Xfinity thought it was a good idea to co-opt a naming standard and apply it to their service/hardware. They are completely relying on most Americans to not realize it's simply a marketing trick to make you believe they are ahead of "5G" speeds/technology.

Who "owns" 4G, 5G branding/naming? Is it trademarked? Could Comcast be forced to stop this kind of misleading marketing? Could I launch a competing 11G internet service?

I understand that we don't know all the details, but very large companies have pretty terrible ethics records for this kind of stuff.

Looks like a new acquisition plan:
1. Evaluate a company to buy or license tech
2. Which is cheaper A) Poach employees or B) Buy company or C) License tech?
3. If choice "A", make sure they cannot compete against your legal budget.

"Rebirth" could fix all of our problems.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

After half the industry is doing it for a few years and struggling to sell their wares with it, Apple will announce the are putting AI in iOS, watchOS etc. at WWDC and be hailed innovative and courageous, leading to millions of new sales.

Am I being a bit snarky with my comment? Yes, but I also believe that's how it will happen.