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invertd

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The users balk because they understand that their effective monthly/weekly price was jacked up, by a lot. Regardless of how much Netflix pitches their "unlimited" plan, users understand that their time for (movie) entertainment is not unlimited. Therefore, from their perspective, they see it as it is - a huge price increase - and they move on to better deals or something else entirely.

I kinda like it - picture this simple scenario; you need to fix your car's brakes/rotate tires/change oil/fix taillights/buy gas?/ instead of going to 4-5 garages to get an optimal price/quote you broadcast your interest in the local neighborhood in the hopes that the interest will be fulfilled by a "service provider"..

If you really think about it that's what advertising is, isn't it? Introducing the right stimulus at the right time at the right place to hopefully make you act when you otherwise wouldn't. But it's not just about advertising....having someone or some entity - with much better analytical capabilities than you yourself - posses all this fine grained knowledge about you and you knowing nothing about them and having no control over their actions (in terms of what they can do with your information) it's just asking for trouble. I think we're at a wall here so let's agree to disagree - at least this way we're both happy...

You don't have to wait for the worst to happen. They don't have to blackmail and/or threaten you. They don't even have to abuse the data. What they have already gives them informational asymmetry over you and other users in aggregate - and that's what matters to them. By having access to your search history, documents, emails, spreadsheets, pictures, text messages, blogs, videos, your web page analytics, visitors, purchases, location, friends etc etc they're always guaranteed to be one step ahead of you. That ensures predicting with satisfiable accuracy, say, what you'll buy next, what you'll visit next, where you'd click next, where you'd go next, or, in general what you'll do next. This gives them a clear advantage in terms of controlling a good part of your online life and in turn a good part of your real life. If you feel that's something you can live with, that's fine. Older people recommend not putting all the eggs in one basket (even Google apparently listens to them by diversifying immensely). I am sorry if this may sounds a bit unrealistic/gloomy to you but there's never been an entity in the history of the world that has not abused the power that was given to them.

Yup, when you start introducing countless rules like these topped with the tightly controlled procedure of approving/rejecting apps the whole iOS ecosystem just doesn't feel enticing (or easy) anymore. I can't believe that people actually have to put up with some dude sitting somewhere approving what apps are worth it and getting content via them will cost +30%. It's unreal, if content providers go on with this they'll pass the 30% down to user. How is that not a "tax"?

You're right...the "seamless dispatch service" has it value BUT nowhere near the value of the car itself including things like reliability, comfort, space (etc) and certainly not even close to 30%. I think Apple is just pushing this high anchor so that it'll be negotiated down in the future. I believe we'll see this number being gradually notched down until it becomes either very low (in the low teens) or eventually 0 - just like most taxi fleet services now include the dispatch as a standard feature.

Don't take this the wrong way; but a potential short answer is that there is more to life than programming. Or doing a single thing non-stop, for that matter regardless how passionate your are about it. Taking your mind off of it is not necessarily a bad thing - in fact, it might help you acquire a different perspective which ultimately might assist you in becoming a better problem solver in the long run. Also, "those" people might have different, additional and probably more important obligations such as family or children. Yet some others (as pointed above) might have hobbies which require some time investment.