Windows ecosystem reboot: bad news if you move country
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 4th Oct 2012 14:11 UTC
Windows "Microsoft doesn't understand that people travel around the world, and are hugely sentimental about things they've paid for. Here's a list of some services that are affected by Windows Live ID billing region locks and what you will lose if you move countries." It ain't pretty.
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RE[4]: Not Only MS
by zima on Thu 11th Oct 2012 23:59 UTC in reply to "RE[3]: Not Only MS"
zima
Member since:
2005-07-06

<p>Nooo, because if that were true people in say the USA would be wanting to know why their episode costs $2.99 while the exact same episode in a different region costs the equivalent of 50c.</p>
See its all about squeezing that last dime and selling for the absolute limit the market will bare, long term effects be damned. I mean look at how long it took to get it through their thick heads that nobody was gonna pay for lousy WMA music with DRM up the butt yet while they switched to MP3 they are STILL making piracy the better deal as they charge a buck a single when by all rights it should be less than 25c since they don't have any printing or distribution costs.

While I see and agree overall with the sentiment of your post... you must realize one important thing about the world: generally, as a rule of thumb, the more impoverished a given place is, the more expensive ~luxury products are (and media are certainly such products); the essentials (water, food, shelter, clothing, fuel) are quite often also more expensive; all when talking in absolute amounts of money (gets much worse in relative).
I would be glad if singles cost the equivalent of 1 USD in my currency - but they are around two times more expensive. In absolute amounts, so think at least 3-4x in relative.

Which of course has the large scale, worldwide effect of raising a generation who thinks that downloading media from p2p is quite normal...
Remember all the noise around ACTA, how some societies rose up in protests, how some countries - PL, for example - supposedly essentially blocked it? One thing wasn't very publicised - in PL, for example, the rallying cry among the masses was "you won't be able to download movies!" ...and not much more. That's all they really cared about.

rather than keep themselves relevant by following the Henry Ford model of capitalism, make it cheap and sell lots, they will squeeze for every last dime, sticking it to artists AND consumers for every penny they can shake out of your pocket.

Though this analogy is not the most fortunate...

NVM that Fordism can be also described as the masses having ENOUGH money to afford the product (which they generally do in the case of media).

Fordism is also about homogenisation of production (one-few mass-produced models), many identical units - and in this perspective, the media industry is WILDLY successful: the masses not only mostly consume and buy "big media" product, they also pirate such content much more than music/films/games coming from indie "craftsmen" ...do you really want more Fordism in how the masses consume media, more mass-produced entertainment?

Edited 2012-10-12 00:18 UTC

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