Four companies appears to be enough to cause some competition, enough to have dramatic impact.

I'm not a free market extremist by any means, and obviously the competition in cellular is week, but way better than wired internet (where my options have been one since 3mbps dsl hasn't been enough).

My argument is really we have a stark example of limited competition (falling prices, massive inprovement, and yes, I only use ten to eleven gB on my alleged uncapped plan, vs no competition (no price drop, increase even if I want tv, mild improvement. It becomes very obvious there's a need to do somethibg, even without the context of the rest of the world.

I'm sorry, I'm drunk and love commas tonight.

My home is 30/6 20ms (recent increase)
My phone is 60/20 50Ms (also recent boost).

Was 20/6 and 40/20 pretty recebully. I pay $40 at home, $100 on phone (also get minutes and texts), use 10 ish gb on the phone no trouble, but way more at home I'm sure.

Last I checked, Comcast was close to $100 for 50/25 around here.

Things are so bad with out competition, that wireless availability went from 50kbps to 60mbps in the same time cable went 6mbps to 50mbps.

Pretty strong evidence that competition works, and cable companies suck.

Awww shit, quote was supposed to include the and that's not the worst part bit.

Thank you for making something worth reading on Slashdot, even on April first. That SHOULD NOT be an undergrad.

You're paying so that there's a sunk cost if you quit. That's my take away from the summary (how I read the evidence that most people quit MOOCs that are free).

I'd like to see a quit rate for ones that have a fee (not a huge one, but say a few hundred), and actually count for something concrete.

The upside of a college class in today's society is more than just knowledge, and the downside for quiting is wasted thousands of dollars. With that in mind, college classes (and college in general) have a huge quit rate.

It appears to be working. Globalization means that most Americans are on the losing side.

Yes, it's usually in places that still have the single boiler system here too.

Usually they keep it to a cool but livable temperature for free, and you can spot heat with electric heaters as needed.

It's a deal I'd happily take.

OK, a lot of the converted houses here (Wilmington, DE, USA) have a single central heating system from before the splitting of the units.

There is a "livable" range they have to keep it to I believe. I assumed urban rentals were frequently like that (lacking individual thermostats).

I think they regulate the appropriate temp in rentals, where often units don't pay or have individual control.

hmmm, sleep is good...

I think my vague point was that the free radio offered by Spotify is (usually) better than playing from my (or another's) music collection. The free Spotify radio eliminates the need to buy any music, because it's better than the music one would select and buy on their own.

Unlike radio, which was a way to advertise music to buy, I regularly see Spotify (and even Pandora with it's limited selection) as a substitute for ever needing to buy music, far more often than radio acted that way.

This is leaving aside the fact that Spotify allows for custom playlists, and not just radio from a desktop (for free).

I think really, what the labels should eliminate, if they're that concerned, is the free playlist organization on desktops though, most people I know are still unlikely to stream too much music on mobile due to bandwidth limits (the caching feature helps with this though).

Spotify, even the free version, eliminates the need for a music collection, as it's better than radio, and knows about artists I don't know about, and when picking a specific song I like to base a station on, it does an amazing job of throwing together a playlist.

Having said all that, I subscribe, first to Spotify, to use it in my car, and then to Google Play, because I can side load what it is missing (mostly local bands from my youth).

Which isn't to say that you're entirely wrong, only that the shift for the typical decent person to get so animalistic makes them incapable of bad behavior because of other effects.

And some people are probably more inherently against "bad" actions than others. I'm sure that there's plenty of people that need their higher brain to over ride a feeling of disgust for certain things, that others need their higher brain to prevent (violence being an example of something that can be justified, but some people find absolutely repulsive, and others love), it takes all ttpea. (Literally, for the long term survival of a gene pool)

I've been in plenty of rooms of drunken people. The only two times there were violence were the type of asshole that were prone to violence anyway. Angry drunks are usually angry sobers.

Of course it's hurting sales.

Radio stations based on a song are often superior to my collection. At work it's all we use now, yeah yeah, anecdote.

Radio stations that play what we want are better than Dj ing from our own collection, and way better than the radio.

I was converted to a paying customer to get specific songs when I wanted too though. I think that what they really should attack though is custom playlists on the desktop (to maximize revenue, as a happy paying customer, I just hope they don't kill the concept of music subscription, I don't know how I'd discover new music without one).

That's actually not a terrible point, but would be even better handled with a smartwatch I'd think.

Also, some of us like to know how much longer we'll be waiting, or at work, or etc. While truly not needing to worry about time would be excellent, if I'm just chilling at home, and am meeting someone at 8, I may want to know if I have time to vacuum before I start getting ready or not, I don't see how notifications could tell me that.