The Cost of 'Free'

Around the time that Mark Zuckerberg was testifying before Congress regarding the Cambridge Analytica scandal, I shared an article from the Facebook page of a local TV news affiliate which mostly centered around discussing the extent of the damage. For some reason though, the news station decided to include with the article link, a photo of Zuckerberg, captioned with the question: "WOULD YOU PAY FOR FACEBOOK?" By sharing this article with my Facebook friends, I quickly discovered two things:

1) most people don't bother reading more than the post's headline or looking at the photo, and

2) a surprising number of my Facebook friends (even those whom I'd describe as fiscally conservative) have a very strong entitlement mentality when it comes to services that depend on internet access.

I was genuinely shocked at the number of comments on the post which ranged from a simple 'No' to a flat-out dismissal of the suggestion that they pay for something like Facebook since they're "already paying for internet."

Is this really the mindset of most internet users? If so, it's no wonder the advent of broadband internet turned out to be such a slobberknocker to the chin of the entertainment industry.

Apparently, to most users, paying to access the internet should entitle you to unbridled access to the contents of any other device connected to the internet. Except for Netflix. But even in the case of Netflix, many no doubt would not (and in fact, do not) have a problem sharing a friend's sign-on credentials.

It just seems baffling to me that someone could be fine with the fact that Amazon won't ship them say, a pair of shoes unless they you know, pay for them first, but how dare HBO force a non-subscriber to go buy the latest episode of Game Of Thrones from iTunes! Those greedy bastards!

This is the entitlement mentality of the new, internet-connected masses, and the entertainment/service industries found themselves in a position in which they had to sink or swim. So, they did what they had to do when the customer either won't pay or can't do so in a convenient manner: they brought in advertisers to help keep the lights on. Only problem is, internet advertisers aren't satisfied merely showing people ads. They wanted something in return. Namely, your personal data, so that they could allegedly market their products and services to you "more effectively."

And when advertisers started suffering negative PR as a result of having their ads associated with controversial content, they started demanding the authority to censor the site's content. Actually, except for a few loudmouth advertisers with their own political agendas, that's not exactly accurate. The more accurate picture is much worse. Most advertisers don't want the authority to censor, seeing as how that's a whole new bag of problems on its own. What they want is a pre-sanitized, safe-space for both advertisers and users. And guess what? Money talks.

So, that's the state of today's internet. Users are too stingy to pay directly for what they use, therefore, their personal data gets sold off to the highest bidder (to do God-knows-what with it) while social networks rid their platforms of anything remotely offensive - or interesting.

"Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss."

Initial Impressions: Samsung Note 8

Admittedly, I've not had much time to play around with it but now that I finally own a phone with curved screen edges, my response is pretty much the same as it was three years ago when I chose the Samsung Note 4 over its asymmetrically-curved new sister, the Note Edge: 'Why?'

That question is made all the more difficult to answer since it's essentially mandatory that the first thing one do after acquiring such a device is shoe-horn it into an overpriced plastic case that hides all but the faintest hint of the phone's most unique feature.

This is the feature Samsung ranked higher in value than the convenience-ensuring, privacy-protecting and PR-catastrophe-preventing qualities made possible by a removable battery? Something that looks cool until you have to cover it up to keep it from breaking?

Most of my working adult life has been spent either carrying or working with others who carry two-way radios (aka: walkie-talkies). One of two things typically happens when your radio battery dies. Either you swap out battery packs or (if the battery isn't removable) you swap out radios. You don't just plug it in to charge and "go silent" for the next 30-60 minutes.

Given that the technological requirements (not to mention hardware costs) aren't yet at the point where we can simply swap out one phone for another in less time than is required for a pee break, it seems pretty reasonable to assume that either your phone's battery should be swappable or your phone should be expendable enough to go hour-long stretches without it. Put another way, to quote the strip-club boss from Kill Bill vol. 2:

"What are you trying to convince me of exactly, that you're as useless as an a--hole right here? [points to elbow] Well, guess what, buddy... I think you just f---ing convinced me."

Stop and consider for a minute, the total cost of ownership (TCO) of your smartphone. Most people pay between $35-$75/month for service, another $10-$40/month for the 'lease' or phone payment itself, plus maybe you're paying a monthly fee for what I call sloppy-seconds insurance (that's where you pay $11/month and if your phone breaks, they replace it with a previously repaired device).

That's between $45 and $115 a month (or $1.50-$3.83 per day) for something that even the manufacturer thinks is so non-essential that you should be able to leave it parked on a charger at least once or twice a day.

Maybe that's why two of the smartest men I know still use flip-phones.