The latter shouldn't amaze you. The credit card companies get a cut, I mean transaction fee.

It's rather telling that systemd introduces and relies on MSDOS .ini files from the 80s-90s era.
In ten years time, the systemd will probably introduce the registry too.

I don't think that's entirely true. People switched (and still switch) from Solaris to Red Hat, despite Red Hat not being exactly cheap.

I think compatibility and availability of software are the main reasons. The toolbox approach facilitates that, while the kitchen sink abstractions hinder it.

You'd be surprised. People bought expensive workstations with IRIX and changed them to run Linux. Primarily for compatibility reasons, but there were also people who did it because they liked Linux and the concept of a larger toolbox instead of larger tools.

What you say doesn't hang on a pitchfork.
If the big commercial unix versions (Solaris, AIX, HPUX, IRIX) failed due to their complexity, the solution for the winner, Linux, is not to increase complexity. It's because of the toolbox approach where you can always upgrade one component without touching others that Linux won. Going back to smit-like administration abstracted five ways from hell and with tentacles into everything and its godmother isn't going to make people flock to Linux.

Splitting sysv init into a couple of even simpler and lower level components might.

The sysadmins are the meal ticket of developers. For years now, we've been saying we don't want systemd unless it can be made compatible and standalone. Now Red Hat calls me and wonders why I choose to install RHEL 6 on new systems, given that RHEL 7 is out. Why? Because we told you in advance what we wanted, and you chose not to listen.

Sysadmins are in a position to choose their operating systems. The developers are not in a position to choose their customers.

In the same way as ketchup works ok on dinner.
It depends on what you eat, and whether you want diversity or accept ketchup-compatible slop served on fancy plates.

Systems that cater to 90% of the users isn't good enough for Unix-like systems. Because the 10% provide 90% of the innovation.

Don't worry - systemd will handle that for you, and bring your interfaces up whether you want them up or not, using hundreds of sensible MSDOS .ini files. And if you run into problems, you can always check the systemd-journald binary logs through a suitable systemd secret decoder program. Unless, of course, the system went down before the non-transactional logging went to disk.

I'm not sure that giving people warm fuzzies should take priority over steering the ship in a direction that has proven successful for more than a generation, and which has allowed diversity to flourish.

Important enough that it may be sold to the highest bidder 30 years later when the kid runs for president?

The main problem here is retention, and who possesses the data.

And politicians who don't have the balls to push for prosecution here should think hard. If all the confidential data from their own school years had been leaked during their campaigning, would they have been in office?

Out of band means that it's not distributed through the normal channels; i.e. Windows Update.

This one is, so it's not out of band.
And it's also only for server products, not Windows 7/8/8.1/10.

But don't let that stop what /. now uses instead of editors from making a stupid headline.

This is an oft touted claim of conservatives, but it just isn't true. Socialized health care gives far more bang for the buck than privatized. Take a look at how much Americans pay in healthcare costs pro capita (pre-Obamacare if you like, so you won't have that to blame), and compare that with factors like lifespan and health. Columbia pays far more and gets far less precisely because it's so privatized.
The problem is that with a capitalized system, what matters is maximizing profit, and prices will converge at the highest cost the buyers are is willing to pay. When what you pay for is your life and health, the sky is the limit.

Why do Americans go to Canada to buy prescription drugs? Because the free market does not mean lower costs. Rather the opposite.

For Android:
Settings -> Wireless & networks -> Mobile networks -> Access Point Names
Choose "Reset to default" from the menu.

That gives me an empty list.

That's putting the cart before the horse. Before the constitution, civil law was what was in effect. The constitution cannot retroactively change that for the time the declaration of independence was written.