C'mon. Since when has Apple supported software that was more than a few years old? They assume that everybody buys new electronics annually.

Corporations have to answer to shareholders, and to a lesser extent, their customers.

Yeah, all the shareholders want is more profit. That's worked out really well for the Net in the US.

the increasing difficulty of making small retail businesses profitable given everything from increasing regulations

As somebody who works for a small retail business, I'm wondering, what are these "increased regulations" that you speak of? We haven't seen any and we've been in businesses for more than ten years.

I'm happy to pay taxes to support my community, my state, my country, and my fellow man.

This retailer isn't scared. Just waiting for the bubble to burst. Amazon can't bleed money forever. Eventually, the chickens will come home to roost.

A front line retail job has never been a respectable career.

Eat shit, AC.

They're losing money hand over fist, but the dumb investors love it!

There are lots of applications where using DB would price you right out of the market.

Like what?

Retail isn't dead. Big Box retail is hurting, but independent retailers can and do still compete easily with both Big Box and ecommerce.

the pricing does get nasty when you get to the point of needing clusters, high core counts, and standby sites.

If you're doing something that data intensive and can't afford a DB license, then you're doing something wrong.

I'm sorry, but are there a lot of cases FDIC or the NCUA not making somebody whole after a bank or credit union collapse? I've never heard of one.

Right because my Nokia 6610 always flawlessly handled VISA/MC transactions

I don't know what you mean by that because Visa/MC haven't done anything like that (yet). My point is that there's really little chance for any other middleman, whether it's Google, Apple, or anybody else to make themselves into an industry standard, because it's always going to be more expensive than using a top tier merchant processor that can give you Interchange Plus a basis point or two.

Paypal is a cute little thing for informal, small transactions. It's an unregulated, untrustworthy service that is still primarily used on eBay. It's not at all what

Citation, please, or STFU.

Are you serious?

Apple is NOT involved directly in ANY "per-transaction" fees (nor procedures).

So, how long do you think that Apple is going to do this for free....?

Apple is in NO WAY involved on a per-transaction-basis

Yet.

Apple has NO WAY of verifying nor reinforcing what the bank reports/pays to Apple

Apple has access to every piece of data that passes through their phones. They know exactly how many transactions they do and for how much.

Apple is essentially doing this "for free"

Right. It ain't gonna last.