I see this a lot and I'm not convinced, especially since the guy has only been in the ground for around 3 years. How much does Apple have to do for you to change you mind? Where is the boundary between what you consider innovative and not. What is your evidence that their pace of innovation has slowed? I'm not saying you are right or wrong but you stated it as if it is axiomatic and I don't think I agree. I don't see any other companies really innovating meaningfully faster when you are talking time scales of 5-15 years which is what matters here.

Apple has historically introduced one or two big products per decade. The original Apple Computers came out in the late 1970s. The Macintosh was created in 1984. The iPod in 2001. The iPhone in 2007 and the iPad in 2010 which are really the same device in different form factors. Other products of note were the Apple LaserWriter (first desktop laser printer - Apple dropped the ball on that one) in 1985 and the Newton MessagePad in 1994. (The Apple Watch is too new to decide if it is noteworthy or not) Apple's most grim time financially was during the 1990s when their big bet (the MessagePad) was a flop and they mismanaged the Macintosh. I think people might be confused about their pace of innovation late in Steve Jobs life because they mistakenly consider the iPhone and iPad to be different devices when they really aren't. In fact the iPhone came out to the development for the iPad. They are the same device really.

Companies like Samsung and HTC and others are trying a lot of stuff and most of it is crap but some is good and works. Apple works really hard on a few things and doesn't release as much but their batting average is much better. Neither approach is right or wrong but you have to look at it on a time scale of more than 2-3 years to get a sense of pace of innovation. Realistically we should be having this discussion about 5-7 years in the future.

Product ideas that can move markets the way the Mac and the iDevices have are REALLY hard to come up with. I see some companies like Samsung throwing a lot of stuff out there but most of it is quite unremarkable. I think expectations that Apple would introduce some big market moving product the minute Steve Jobs died is pretty unrealistic. It may turn out that without Jobs the company will founder - they did once before. But we really should wait a few years to see if they really can or cannot come up with their next big success. I think their ApplePay service *might* turn out to be a really big deal but that remains to be seen. I think it is the most interesting new product they've done since the iPad and it certainly could be the most lucrative.

The post office has a variety of problems. Commercial mail discounts are not the most significant among them and in fact an increasing amount of their business comes from junk mail overall. On an operational basis the USPS is profitable. The biggest problem they face is that mail volume has fallen by 20% in the last 10 years and is showing little sign of stopping. People simply don't send as many letters as they once did thanks to email and other new technologies. The USPS is a shrinking business but since they in actuality are a government agency they aren't truly given the freedom to behave like one. They are forced to serve unprofitable locations, they cannot close unnecessary post offices, they are limited in their ability to reduce their workforce, etc.

Regarding your comment on postage rates:
The increase in postage costs in the last 25 years is roughly the rate average rate of inflation (~3%) over that time. It's taken since 1991 when the price of a stamp was $0.25 until today ($0.49) for the price of a first class stamp to double which is pretty much exactly what you might expect. With a 3% inflation rate prices double roughly every 25 years. That means in inflation adjusted terms a stamp costs almost exactly the same as it did 25 years ago.

It's not that government "can be part of the answer". Government HAS to be part of the answer. I agree that except on very small scales, government owned ISPs are probably not the best idea. But large ISPs without any government oversight is probably an even worse idea. There are certain industries (postal services, utilities, infrastructure, communications services) that simply will not work effectively on a large scale without a significant amount of government involvement and oversight.

That said if the citizens of my local town wanted to have municipal gigabit ethernet controlled by the local government and collectively voted to indicate they were fine with the cost of doing this, I cannot think of a logical reason to prohibit it either. If the local telecom/cable monopolies aren't providing what people want they should be able to utilize their government to make it happen.

Disclosure: I'm a certified accountant.

No company or any meaningful size has a 97% profit margin, net or gross. Comcast's fixed costs are considerably higher than 3%. In actual fact the vast majority of their costs could reasonably be classified as fixed. They don't sell products on a unit cost basis which is what defines variable costs. It is only a variable cost if it fluctuates directly based on the amount of product produced in the short run. Otherwise it is a fixed cost.

I think you misunderstand what fixed costs are. Fixed costs are costs they will have to pay (in the short run) regardless of how much product they sell. They have to pay for utilities, salaries, maintenance, rent, contractual payments for content, etc. The vast majority of the cost to a big company like AT&T or Comcast will be fixed costs. Unless the cost directly fluctuates due to production/sales, then it is generally classified as a fixed cost.

If their fixed costs doubled they would be losing money and lots of it. Building and maintaining the amount of infrastructure any telecom or cable company has involves enormous fixed costs.

Why not? I know it's all fashionable to claim that governments cannot do anything efficiently or competently. (Even though that is demonstrably not true) But you are taking that as an axiom when you shouldn't. Yes governments sometimes make bad choices. Guess what? So do corporations and corporations are ultimately less accountable to the electorate. Corporations do NOT have the best interests of consumers in mind. We only end up with that result either through competition or (gasp) government regulation. We use government for a lot of critical functions, particularly when there is a market failure and there is a market failure in telecom delivery because it is not a competitive market in most places.

The government doesn't actually have to physically do the work - governments usually contract that sort of stuff out anyway and that is fine. Your local government doesn't build the roads - they just contract with the companies that do. But they could and should take a more active role in being an advocate for their constituents. Some governments (like the one in Worcester) seem to grok this.

What you are describing is called a natural monopoly. They tend to exist in markets like wired telecom or power delivery to homes. That said, your comment that "they aren't keeping anyone else from competing" is complete nonsense. If that were the case then there would not be agreements with local governments across the nation granting them monopoly rights to deliver cable TV and other services. In a lot of places a company could not deliver the same services even if they had the financial backing and desire to do so. The only reason AT&T and Verizon can get around this is that they already have a wire to your home.

That's very likely not true because you are presuming they are selling their product for a minimal markup. You only have to look at the Income Statement from Comcast to know that they will probably make about $10 BILLION in profit this year. (insert Dr. Evil pinky quote here) They can do this because in a lot of markets they can charge monopolistic pricing. There is plenty of fat in Comcast to be cut before we should expect consumers to bear any cost increase from competition.

HBO is owned by Time Warner. Time Warner sells cable and makes a lot of money from people buying cable just to get HBO. Hence Time Warner has actively resisted HBO selling their content a la carte. Time Warner will make money either way - they've just been denying the sound of inevitability because the folks at the top fear change.

There is quite a bit more than two things missing though I agree with the deficiencies you identify among others.

You REALLY do not want tablets on most manufacturing floors. The products we work with would trash a tablet in about a week if not sooner and we don't even do anything especially messy. Furthermore that would require buying an expensive computer for every worker on our shop floor, many of which would, ummm... disappear. What we do is keep the Controlled master copy online and then print a reference copy at the beginning of each job. The reference copy then circulates back to engineering or other parties that need it and the master controlled copies get updated for the next job. Works quite well actually.

Tablets have a variety of problems for document management:

1) The problem you mentioned that you cannot effectively annotate documents. In manufacturing, work instructions frequently need to be updated, annotated, etc. People are working on the problem but there is no universally practical solution imminent that I'm aware of.
2) Tablets break and get stolen. My wife works in a doctor's office and they use ipads for documenting patient data (good use of them) and they've had several of them stolen and one dropped and broken. You can drop paper all day long and it won't break.
3) If the software on the tablet you are working with doesn't fit your need it's a much bigger problem to fix than just modifying some paper forms.
4) Tablets are hugely impractical in a dirty production environment. Greasy/dirty fingers and tablets don't mix well.
5) Tablets require either buying or developing software to accommodate most work flows. This can be a very expensive proposition.
6) Tablets are a capital expense that has to be depreciated.
7) Most tablets are designed with consumer markets in mind rather than business needs. They are hard to lock down tightly if needed.

I can keep going. I think tablets are going to make huge inroads over time but anyone that thinks they will eliminate paper from offices is delusional.

Bullshit they don't. I defy you to find me anyone working in accounting or HR that isn't positively drowning in paper. Some have more than others but most real businesses use quite a lot of printed paper.

Invoices, bills, work instructions, checks, deposit slips, customer statements, engineering drawings, purchase orders, material safety data sheets, 1099 forms, W2 forms, I9 forms, pick lists, work orders, quality travelers, shipping labels, packing lists and lots more. I personally print about 1000-2000 pages per month. My (tiny) company probably prints around 3000 pages per month on average. This is very normal for even a very small business.

I have worked a LOT of places and I've never seen a functional office that didn't have a lot of printing going on. You may not need much for your particular job but I am fairly certain that your business does a huge amount of printing unless you are doing something quite unusual. HP, Brother, Canon and the rest don't sell all those printers because they look nice.

Maybe on some other planet. Not in any office I've ever worked in.

That was merely one of many problems and not even close to the biggest problem. The biggest problem with the "paperless" office is flexibility, particularly with regard to changing work flows. Paper has many drawbacks but it has the HUGE advantage that it is enormously flexible and adaptable to different work flows. I can design a form and make lots of copies and change a work flow in minutes without anyone else needing access to a computer. To have a paperless system you need a significant amount of programming and process design every time you need to change a work flow.

It's possible to automate many work flows with electronic only documents but the work flows either need to be either fairly static or they need to fit the already existing infrastructure in place at an organization unless you are planning to make a big ($$) investment. For example at my company (a small manufacturer), we print our work instructions for jobs on the floor. Why? Primarily because the cost to make them electronic would be enormous (many new computers, lots of programming time, etc) and we would end up with a system that would be less flexible and cost more for marginal if any real benefit. Sure, I'd love to make it all paperless and maybe someday it will happen but doing so is a huge amount of work with very uncertain payback.

You must not work in an office then.

Not in my lifetime or yours. I'm typing this at a desk that has so much paper on it I can barely see the desktop. Computers did not, do not and will not make paper obsolete. In actual fact computers make it easier than ever to generate vast quantities of printed documents and that is exactly what people do.

So many problems with this:

1) It's cute how they think people were paying attention before. The little song and dance number they do before every flight is a bureaucrat's dumb idea. Air travel is almost absurdly safe and the talk is a good approximation of useless. It's purely so that if the airline gets sued they have a defense and that isn't my problem.

2) There has never been a requirement that "all items" be stowed during takeoff and landing or if there actually was such a regulation it was never enforced before so it's unclear why it is now necessary. I've never been asked to put away a magazine or any number of other loose items during takeoff or landing.

3) Reading or playing with my tablet keeps what is already an uncomfortable and annoying experience within the bounds of tolerable. If they want to give me more leg room and a better seat then we can talk about when to allow my choice of entertainment.

When the behavior got out of hand, yes I did. For the most part they respected it though I doubt their opinions actually changed.

I wish real life relationships were actually that simple. My parents have asked rude questions about marriage time tables, whether we would have kids, etc. Stuff that is none of their business and I find the questions quite rude. Sure I could break them off and say I'm never going to see them again but that seems a little extreme for a well intended but impolite inquiry. There are relatives I generally avoid but I'd need a better reason for my parents, in-laws, grand parents or sibling.

What I don't get is why everyone that has kids automatically assumes every other person wants to have them too. They simply cannot imagine that you wouldn't want the burden of raising another human being. I'm sure it's a lovely experience and all but people get really pushy and intrusive about it.