Yes, of course. But then, who is going to risk his life savings running a similar business in the same spot as the poor schmuck that went under before him? In the meantime, the residents of that location may have to drive far or pay a lot to get access to things that used to be available at the local store. Betting that Amazon prime will keep losing money shipping to these remote areas is not a gamble I would be willing to take.

1. The shipping is being done at a loss. The local provider is not being inefficient; the seller is basically subsidized by Amazon. This subsidy can be pulled at any time, once Amazon decides to tighten the rules on renewal.
2. We're talking about small communities where there may not be that many jobs available. The loss of three of four jobs out of a labor pool of 20-30 people is a major blow. Furthermore, the money that kept in the local shops is now being sent out of the community, leaving even less money available locally.
3. The loss of one local business that goes under may cause issues to other local businesses that depended on it.

Is that really smart? What attracts customers to System76 computers? Is it their superior software, or their (from what I've heard) sturdy, reliable hardware? You are given the choice between running Ubuntu or some obscure distribution that hardly anybody uses. System76 will probably not be able to make a community which is even the tenth of the size of the one for Ubuntu. If you run this distribution, few people will be able to help you if the issue happens on a component that differs even slightly from vanilla Ubuntu.

On a more general note, most of the software differentiation efforts that are run on Windows and Android have always looked to me like wasted efforts. When I buy a computer with Windows, one of the first things I will do is remove most, if not all of the manufacturer software that was bundled with it, since almost all of it is useless and/or undesirable. The situation on Android is even worse, in my opinion. The interface is often arbitrarily modified for no good reason, to the point that an upgrade of the Android version will move half the settings around. From having tried Nexus and Samsung phones, the GUI "improvements" are questionable at best, and they always make it difficult to make similar changes on different devices.

You would have a point if Dell was an exception. Unfortunately, it seems software support ends for a lot of Android device on the moment that they leave the factory. I just checked the Staples site, and most of the tablets they offer are still running Lollipop. Now, even Google has stopped making tablets, so good luck finding an Android tablet whose manufacturer is willing to keep providing updates on it. Thus, I don't see how Dell is better or worse than the rest of the manufacturers out there.

Let me make an analogy between a multiplayer game and a night club. A night club needs a critical mass of people to be profitable. If the number of people dips below a certain level, then the club is doomed - fewer and fewer people will show up every night, until the club is empty. Thus kicking loud and obnoxious patrons is a sensible decision, because even though they are bringing some profit to the club, they drive other customers out. Which brings me back to the reason why it makes sense to kick cheaters out of the game. The presence of even a few cheaters has a large psychological effect on the rest of the players - when you get killed in shooter repeatedly by the same one or two players, you start thinking: "Is that guy cheating? Why am I getting my ass kicked?". And thus, instead of having fun, players are getting frustrated. Furthermore, I think a lot of cheaters are really obnoxious assholes. They love bragging about it, they often derive fun from making other people angry. They will belittle others for making a big deal of their cheating. In short, they're the kind of players nobody wants to play against. And just like the obnoxious patrons in a night club, they will make players leave for greener pastures, and once everyone is gone, they will go somewhere else - and do the same thing all over again.

So what all of this - which I am not pretending to be anything other than my opinion - has to do with lost sales? I will agree it may not matter so much for a game which strongest component is its single player campaign. For a purely multiplayer game though, I think it will hurt the community growth, cause it to never grow to its full potential and shrink to the state where "nobody plays because nobody plays" sooner. In the old days when all the money derived from the game was made on its initial purchase, it didn't matter so much, but as many other posters have mentioned, it will probably have an impact on games that depend on subscriptions on monthly transactions - and lo and behold - this is probably the reason your hear more of these types of stories. Companies are taking notice that cheaters are bad for them, and taking actions to attempt to fix the issue.

Keep on believing that. I've used Linux over a span of years as a desktop OS, and still run it in a VM, but I run Windows now. I could give you a dozen reasons why I prefer Windows, which you probably already heard (I recommend the comment of Toshito, which I totally agree with), so I won't waste my time doing that. If the people developing Linux are half as smug as you and blind to the weaknesses of Linux on the desktop, Microsoft has nothing to fear.

Your comment confirms what I have been suspecting for a long time. Now, you may disagree with most of what I am about to say. The thing is... I don't think Firefox was ever all that great. It's strongest asset is that it came out at the right time: Internet Explorer was stagnant, Netscape was all but dead: there was simply no competition. Most of their successes came from copying features from Opera, and releasing them for free. I remember seeing Opera users raving about their browser, but I stayed on Firefox: it was free, and I didn't want to pay. Another sign that Firefox is not all that it's hyped up to be is that nobody ever seems to fork its code or develop something based on its technology. When Apple decided to develop a browser, they picked KHTML, not Gecko. XUL went nowhere. The few projects to develop an alternative Qt interface to Firefox died on the vine. But Mozilla didn't need to excel: the sponsorship deal with Google brought in ludicrous amounts of money, I heard the amount 300 millions a year at some point. Now you have to wonder: you much does it costs to develop a browser? The answer is, no matter how hard you try, it can't cost 300 millions. It just can't. Thus, the purpose of all the side projects the Mozilla foundation is running is to be able to spend the money they were raking in (and to justify the compensations of their management).
Now, the situation is of course quite different. Google figured out it would be a lot cheaper to develop their own browser than to keep sending a check to Mozilla, and the way things are going, there won't be enough people left using their browser for them to be able to carry on the development of Firefox. I don't think the future is very bright for Mozilla. Hopefully Firefox will live on, maybe under a different brand name.

Well, are you more inclined to listen to someone who starts out by calling you names? "You must be a moron to believe this", or in this case, "so much stupid in this statement"? I think these types of attacks detract from his main argument, so he's only doing to himself what you accuse me right now of doing. I think personally that the way the AC stated his opinion simply deserves no reply, which is what he is going to get. Not that I think he cares, but nonetheless such pointless abuse is a distraction from the subject at hand, and people will focus on that, whether you think it is idiotic or not.

I mostly agree with what you said, but I think your argument would have been far more convincing had it been written in a more polite manner, as the discussion has been so far. I don't think you will get a reply after taking such an aggressive tone to state your opinion.

I can't speak for Kindles, but I've owned several Kobos, and they were all terrible for showing any kind of interactive content. Clicking on a link on a page of text is an exercise in frustration, the finger press being interpreted 4/5 times as a page change, and when it works, it will take several seconds, sometimes ~20, to go see the referenced content, which is sometimes just a footnote which was only 2-3 page changes away. They're good for displaying linear content, such as reading a novel, but forget about trying to use them to read a reference manual where you want to be able to flip through content quickly.

Meh, I posted too fast. I have to correct what I said about renaming files, I thought you only meant moving them. You can still rename several files at a time in Windows Explorer by selecting them all with Ctrl and renaming one. It's limited, I admit. However, I don't think it's something which normal users need to do often enough to be worth being part of the default file manager. Those who need to do that kind of stuff can go look for a third party tool. I apologize for the tone of the second paragraph of my previous comment. My first paragraph still stands though.

I have to side with djrobxx here. Having to hunt down basic stuff like a weather app on Android sucks. It's a complete waste of my time. Having to do that crap on the Windows platform would be far worse. The environment is much less controlled, so you would have to take the risk of catching viruses to get a functional system, the aggravation of getting nickel and dimed for programs you need, pay for updates for essential tools, etc. You think this attitude is hurting them now because it taught users to be lazy? I think it far more likely some other company would have come along, selling an OS properly fitted with the essentials and eaten their lunches. Who knows? Maybe we'd all be on Macs right now (something I suspect some people would look on as an improvement, but still...).

By the way, your example is crap, too. You can press the Ctrl key to select multiple items at the same time and THEN move them to another folder. How about you start knowing the tools you already have before complaining about them. You're free to install another file manager if you don't like the default one that ships with Windows.

Neither the GP nor you lives in Quebec, so let me correct a few misunderstandings. What he complains about is that there are some members of the National Assembly in Quebec (the PQ, Parti Québecois, "Quebec Party" loosely translated) who are trying to drum up support with stupid laws like forbidding to wear religious symbols for all workers of the government, such as school teachers, doctors, etc. I guess you can compare this to how some members of the Congress in the US having a hard stance on illegal aliens, immigration, or maybe even the Front National in France (although the PQ is extremely far from that party in my opinion). The thing is, the PQ does not represent the view of the majority, they were badly defeated in the last election, with the Liberal Party winning a majority. In short, the post that wired_parrot replied to is representing the view of a minority as if it was something everyone in Quebec agreed on. Then he goes on to spout gems like this:

I'm sure Quebec has its share of racist/xenophobic people, just like everywhere else, the only person in this thread that I can positively confirm is a bigot is the person who wrote this quote.

Replying to myself... I should have written that there's an audience that loves these jokes about the French, since they often seem to be modded up, not that "the Slashdot crowd" loves them in general.

It makes me quite sad to see this crap modded up. The second paragraph is true. The rest of your post is repulsively xenophobic garbage. I think your (anonymous, obviously) post says a whole lot more about you than about Quebec and its people in general. But keep up the good work! The Slashdot crowd loves the "French! Surrender! huhuh" jokes and its ilk.