(IANAL)
The legal definition of 'Theft' in my country, the UK, and (I believe) America is this:
"Dishonest appropriation of property without the ownerÃ(TM)s consent, with intent to deprive them of its use, either temporarily or permanently."
Anyone else notice that last part?
Ahh the good old days... Amiga bliss... really should grab that outta the cupboard and dust it off one day
It really bothers me that I can't find any vocal resistance in the press to these buzzwords. Is there anyone with a brain?
There's a few of us with a brain, we're just jaded beyond vocal resistance.
Yes. You also pay for some of the electricity that turns the lights on, for the display that holds the bread... and some of the wages of the guy/gal who put that bread on the shelf... and some of the fuel costs for the truck it was transported in... etc, etc.
These 'fees' are spread over the many other items in the store. But yes, you pay them. They're called "costs", they're the big chunk of money from that $2 loaf that means the baker only gets 10 cents of "profit".
( Yes the numbers are made up, but the theory is what's important. )
Why not? We can already do basic audio filtering, I've little doubt that a few hundred years of advancement will be able to pick out a single voice in a crowded room. Especially with the funding governments would happily put towards it for 'security' reasons.
However, no matter how much the market forces them to lower prices, I believe there will always be the "high price" version of the cards for the reason I stated earlier.
What "high" means is no doubt bound to change, if that's in the sub-$100 range doesn't change the fact that it'll be the "high-cost" card compared to the previous generation. There are limits to how far the market can push something.
New manufacturing processes take time to perfect. Very few fabrication plants will be able to pump out the massive quantity needed of the 'new' card instantly.
There are issues, bugs in production, and corrections that need to be fixed before they can push that many cards off the shelf and "know" they're going to be in working order.
The high-cost initial sale keeps the money coming in while they're fixing those issues. (and in general, is designed to help pay for the high failure rate of the first batches)
There will always be the 'high-cost, low-volume' sales simply to help hide this all-to-common production issue.
Factorials were someone's attempt to make math LOOK exciting.