The service contract is basically insurance. So when it hits the fan you are guaranteed someone there to help with the situation who is an expert with the software. Yes you say that you'll be there for them any time, but there's no guarantee. Say you took a vacation, say you got in a car accident and are now dead and the guys you trained have since moved on, and the new guys are having trouble with the documentation.

At my last job, free software was fine for anything that wasn't deemed critical. But for critical software, they wanted the fallback, just in case. For the contracted assurance it was worth the extra money.

They're not so much paying for the software, they're paying for the support. The cost for the software often includes a support contract so when it all goes south 10 minutes before broadcast then can not only get all their own hands on deck, but they can bring in a paid expert from the company to help them through the process.

This fact is the biggest problem with most free software out there. If it's not a defacto standard, then the support options are few and far between. If something goes wrong, I don't want to have to wait for a response on a message board that I hope my guys know how to implement since the guy who setup the software left before he had the chance to fully document and train others on how it works.

The most advanced of soundboards still use connectors developed before WWII. This is literally an ain't broke, don't fix it situation. 3.5mm was just a shrinking of the size of patch cords. Requiring USB-C just adds unnecessary complexity to the simplest type of connection, basic stereo audio.

And if we become a burden we end up in a burlap sack in the river.

My biological instinct is to protect my genetic material that I have passed on and in order to do so, try to pass on as much information that I and my community have learned to make survival easier. The instinct can be fooled if the genetic material is similar enough (adoption, community), but for an AI to spark that in us it would need to seem very human, or humanity undergoes a very large change to our biological impulses.

I'm not afraid AI will kill us, but I'm afraid that they won't care to act in such a way that will keep us alive. Once humanity no longer offers super intelligent computers enough benefit, what's to stop them from doing something that, while isn't intentionally killing us, will ultimately lead to extinction; much like humanity has been doing to the other species of the planet

There is a very easy reason they don't do that, support.

Apple has learned from the Macbook and iPhone that the less difference you have in the hardware, the easier it is to deal with problems.

The idea of apple is that it just works. OS updates only need to be tested on a small subset of devices. There's no need to worry about the myriad of RAM suppliers and SSD manufacturers. You only need to deal with a small subset of CPUs and GPUs and there's no general purpose PCIe slots anywhere. The only thing with unknown hardware are the USB and Thunderbolt ports, and they have very specific protocols that make them much easier to test with.

The cost of supporting the desktop line so that from the casual user it's as easy as the laptop and mobile lines is far too high to be worth it. Yes expandable desktops would still be profitable, but any bugs or glitches that are out of their control could be a public relations nightmare for them.

It's annoying, but I get it. The computers need to be just good enough that they work nicely and for 99% of Mac users they do.

Yeah. The Yukon and NWT have microwave and fibre hookups as primary, but one you hit Hudson's bay it gets dicey. But even in those territories there are sat only communities.

Would it still be an embarrassment if we had a capable data infrastructure ready to go when the northwest passage becomes regularly used?

Really they need to come up with a very reasonable non-commercial licencing fee and let the content creators have fun with it.
Add some clauses that allows them to veto if the content is pornographic or too violent or what not, but otherwise let them go.

They'll be making easy money after that.

We have access to nearly every other piece of American media without restrictions, hell we even have to put up with prescription medication ads that are illegal in this country. Really Netflix is the only area that we notice a difference in access and it frustrates the hell out of us.

But we'll still pay for Netflix because the movie selection on our side is awesome

It doesn't matter if the company is capitalistic if they just turn over any requested info to the Chinese Government. And yes it's true the American companies aren't really more trustworthy.

Really you should not trust any VPN that you don't have complete control or trust of the encryption and decryption points.

I fear that I will see in my lifetime the event that signifies the beginning of the end of the American Republic as Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon did for Rome's

I was under the impression that offering money in exchange for political favours was illegal. I mean the usual end run around these issues is support for a re-election campaign; this seems a bit more obviously over the line.

*sigh* plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

And I mean my subject literally. This is precisely how we ended up with mitochondria and much of the junk DNA in our genome. Some foreign invader played the long game so well that it just became part of the organism.

It will be interesting to see if we get to a point where the malware is so useful, that instead of cleaning it out we just find a way to keep the good parts.