I honestly don’t really see that as a problem. If customers really want USB-C, they’ll buy USB-C peripherals and USB-A will drop off naturally. But if USB-A peripherals are more attractive (i.e. cheaper), then I see no problem with both continuing to exist. Let the people decide, don’t force USB-C down their throats…

It’s incredibly expensive to start an isp yes

If there were no issues w/ permitting, it’s really not that expensive.

This article mentions some price estimates, which are $60k/mile (for buried cable) or $1-1.25k/house (excluding connection costs to the residences) (this one gives lower estimates). My city has 120 miles of roads and ~10k households, so the cost for my entire city is something like $7-13M, without hookups. Let’s also assume it costs $1k/household to connect from the street (a figure I’ve seen quoted), so that brings the total cost to $17-23M for my city. If we assume the average household signs up for $50/month service, the payoff period is <3 years and average profit is 15%, we end up with 18-25 years to become profitable. I’m guessing this estimate is high since that profit margin probably includes startup costs, but 18-25 years to turn an initial investment into a 15%/year profit generator isn’t bad, especially for something with inelastic demand like internet service (I’m guessing it’s closer to 10-15 years).

I don’t think internet should be a nationalized service, or even a state-provided service, though I do think there’s merit to cities owning the physical infrastructure in their cities and allowing companies compete for customers on that network, mostly because them owning infrastructure presents a conflict of interest for direct competitors wanting to run their own lines. Larger government entities can and probably should own the backbone lines, but governments shouldn’t directly provide the service because it’s generally bad if you only have one option for a given service.

MS got to where it was because they buy up competition

Not really, they got there by directly competing w/ IBM to build marketshare, and then contracting with PC companies to pay Microsoft a fee whether they included Windows or not. The only acquisition Microsoft made around that initial rise was for a company that made a presentation program that eventually became PowerPoint, and that’s it until the Dept of Justice filed it’s first official anticompetitive impact statement. Microsoft dominated the web browser market in the mid-90s because they were one of the first to market, but they abused this position by locking out competition from internal APIs that enabled better performance (2000 antitrust case).

Almost all of their monopolist behavior was with products they built themselves and locked people into, not products they bought to stop competition, that nonsense didn’t start until fairly recently (i.e. Github and Activision/Blizzard). For most of Microsoft’s time, their monopolist behavior was simply abuse of their market position to either force companies to pay Microsoft even if they didn’t ship Windows (thus pushing them to ship only Windows) or locking out direct competition for their products on their platforms.

You’re just describing free market capitalism.

I’m really not.

Free market capitalism differs from our current economic system in regulations and taxes, which manipulate normal supply and demand. For example, we subsidize EVs, which makes EVs more attractive than they normally would be, which encourages EV companies to keep prices higher than they normally would. We also subsidize roads, which makes cars more attractive than other modes of transportation. We also levy tariffs, which prioritize locally produced goods and goods from friendly trade partners, and may be unequally levied based on product type to protect certain types of domestic industries.

Free market capitalism does not prevent all regulations. You can still ban price fixing and other forms of collusion w/o violating those underlying principles of non-interference. Companies are not “free to do what they want,” they are restricted from colluding w/ government to get special favors or handouts. A system with a properly separated government and market means the government only steps in if there’s a crime, and the list of possible crimes should be limited and not target specific industries. Companies can still acquire others and whatnot to form conglomerates, but doing so is only profitable if they’re breaking some other type of law so it may trigger an investigation.

Once you allow the government to directly regulate the market, you open the floodgates to cronysism. Regulations disproportionately hurt small companies because large companies can overcome it and use those regulations as a weapon against potential competitors.

Nobody challenges cable companies because cable companies can tie up competitors in court over permitting and whatnot to exhaust whatever investment capital they have on legal fees, so the only real competition possible is government (muni fiber) because they control the permitting or new tech (Starlink, point-to-point wireless) because they can sidestep the permitting. If permitting was substantially easier, we’d see more competition in the ISP space (and probably reuse of existing lines since it’s better to make a deal than run separate lines or lose 100% profit).

The only way, IMO, for regulations to be a net good WRT competition is if government is sensible and untouchable by corporations. I don’t believe that’s feasible, so the next best is to limit the ability of governments to make laws that impact the market so corporations don’t have anything to gain through lobbying.

Maybe if we’re talking in absolutes, but most of the problems I see in our current market are due to cronyism. People generally hate Comcast (or local cable company of choice) and CenturyLink (or local DSL company of choice), yet it’s incredibly hard to start an ISP due to local regulations and protectionism. Many people don’t like Windows, yet they’re “required” for many computing tasks due to agreements with others in the industry.

Price fixing and other types of collusion go against the principle of a free market, and if that goes on unchecked, I think it’s appropriate for a government entity to step in. However, if a company is merely the preferred provider of a good or service and they’re not colluding or otherwise preventing competition, there’s no reason for a government entity to step in. So someone like Comcast should probably be broken up, but someone like Valve should not. Not all “monopolies” should be broken up, only the ones violating the law.

Only issue I have is max 65W PD, which should be fine for most laptops, but some laptops can charge at 100W.

Yup. My SO speaks another language, so we absolutely feel this.

What’s wrong with having the option?

True, yet they would totally fit, and do fit on the newer Macbook Pros. And many professional class laptops have RJ45 w/o making it any thicker (port flips down, so it doesn’t need to be full-height always).

I don’t use Facebook or WhatsApp, so that’s not an issue, but we do use SMS quite a bit, so I need something that handles that. That’s an easier problem to solve than Facebook/WhatsApp, so I’m pretty happy about that.

I really disagree, but we haven’t seen anything approaching a truly free market for 100 years or so, so it’s really hard to say.

That said, one of the core functions of government is to break up monopolies to keep the market free.

Yeah, I’m a software developer, and everything I write runs on Linux, so there’s no reason to use Windows.

Oh, free markets can solve these problems, but we don’t have a free market. These big companies don’t win because they’re the best, they win because they buy the marketshare bribe companies to only support their platforms.

ISPs are a fantastic example here. Starting a new ISP is prohibitively expensive, not because of the physical materials you need, but the permits (which the ISPs lobbied for) and lawsuits w/ existing ISPs. In a proper free market, we’d have a lot more selection than we do.

What you call “free market” I call “crony-capitalism.” In a free market, monopolies only stay monopolies if they continue to be better than the alternatives. In a crony-capitalist market, monopolies continue if they can make enough barriers to prevent competition.

The E14 and T14 still have them as well, and that’s what I’m interested in. I used to buy T-series, but they started soldering the RAM, so I switched to E-series for my last one. I don’t know if they solder RAM on the E14 though, they probably do.

I really miss my T440, which had a fantastic keyboard, but my E495 is still better than my Macbook Pro (hate that keyboard) and pretty much every other laptop I’ve used. Not sure how the newer Thinkpads are, but I definitely don’t want those ultra-thin keyboards so many vendors are going with.

And yeah, I’ll probably go AMD again, I want the APU perf and don’t want a dGPU.

except books and comics

Agreed. However, I really like using an e-ink e-reader for books, it’s way more portable and just as (if not more) readable.

I don’t read many comics, but perhaps the new color e-ink ereaders are a decent option? I know Kobo just released some (e.g. Libra Colour), and there are a few other options as well. It doesn’t have as good of saturation as a comic book and likely never will, but it’s way more portable. So maybe consider one of those for travel.

for gaming I have my GBC

Honestly, I couldn’t handle that. The screen is just too crappy. I do have a Steam Deck which can emulate pretty much anything (including Switch apparently), so that’s the route I’m planning to take when nostagia hits. I have an old GBA, but I honestly don’t like using it any more.

Linux isn’t even an option at my current job

If a job requires Windows, I’m not accepting the offer. Simple as. I’m okay w/ macOS provided I have full control, but I’m not using some locked-down Windows image. Screw that.

Yup, I have a 2019 Macbook Pro, so I’m well aware. But it doesn’t have any of the other stuff I mentioned. The new Macbook Pros has most of it, but still no RJ-45.

just read the English wiki entry for Lenovo about security incidents

I use Linux exclusively with full disk encryption (and usually swap the NIC), so I’m not particularly worried about whatever nonsense Lenovo does with their bloatware. That doesn’t cover everything and it’s a big part of why I’m looking for alternatives since Lenovo is owned by a Chinese company, but it’s good enough, and I honestly prefer the ergonomics over anything else.

For work, we use Docker for everything, so there’s nothing actually tying us to macOS. But everyone else on the team uses macOS, so if I pushed for me to use Linux, it would be an uphill battle every time something went wrong for me, or if I make a change that doesn’t work for the rest of the team. So I just use macOS, but bring as many of my Linux tools along with me as I can. I still hate macOS, but at least w/ my Linux tools, I don’t have to interact with it all that much.

I just torrented copies

Yeah, that’s acceptable too IMO. Stick the VHS in a box somewhere and if the police ever come knocking (very unlikely), bring it out and say you digitized them.

And yeah, I get the point, and my kids absolutely get excited when we use the player. But I honestly hate it, because then I need to go find the movie first, and then there’s the risk that it skips (DVD and Bluray) or has artifacting (VHS). I’d much rather just select it from a list and hit play.

That said, I always buy physical media when I can. I buy exclusively physical Switch games, Bluray/DVD movies, etc, because then I know I can lend it to someone, resell (almost never do), or re-rip if my NAS dies. I don’t like dealing with physical media though, and I wish there was a way to install the Switch games onto the Switch so I didn’t need to keep swapping cards. I’ll probably eventually torrent copies of games I own and emulate them.

I much prefer digital, but I’m not okay giving up the rights I get w/ physical media. If I could get DRM-free everything with guarantees that I could always access them in the future (and not “licenses” or whatever), I’d have no use for physical media.

Yup, and that’s why i don’t buy Apple products for personal use. This is provided by work, and mostly because we don’t want to deal with the stupid corporate image (we’ve essentially convinced them we “need” macOS for whatever reason).

If I had my choice, I’d request either a Framework or Thinkpad laptop, Framework because I can keep swap out the ports as needed, and Thinkpad because they come with enough ports, I love the Trackpoint, and the top mousepad buttons rock. But no, I have to deal with Apple’s POS hardware, so forgive me if I take joy in the little things in life, like getting an HDMI port.

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.

…

Hence a phrase that has passed into hitchhiking slang, as in “Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There’s a frood who really knows where his towel is.” (Sass: know, be aware of, meet, have sex with; hoopy: really together guy; frood: really amazingly together guy.)

• Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Join us on Towel Day, May 25th.