Re: Re: Amazon, 1984, "I, Robot"

Hi Daniel -- a good post! (although many of your PC complaints could be 
fixed by installing Linux). But all the trends you complain about are 
not really new or specifically electronic. If I went through all the 
corporations that have a piece of me -- by which I mean that there is a 
explicit or implied contract putting me under some obligation to them -- 
it would be a long long list even before the electronic stuff comes in. 
Insurance company, motoring organisation, credit union, bank mortgage, 
stockbroking company, service agreement with car retailer, electricity 
and gas suppliers, local government, State Government, Taxation Office, 
several public libraries, children's schools, son's college, healthcare 
organisations, credit card supplier, my employers, and probably a dozen 
others I've forgotten... Then we get to phone companies, website 
subscriptions, ISP, web hosts... All of them can do nasty things to me 
and I don't have a legal leg to stand on. Whether or not you like 
Amazon's withdrawal policies is small beer by comparison. The cooking 
pot is pretty well simmering already.

This is the modern equivalent of paying tithes to the local lord of the 
manor. If you want these services then you have to agree to be a good 
and compliant consumer. If you don't then you can go and live in the 
woods (and don't laugh -- there are hillbillies near me in the Blue 
Mountains doing exactly that).

Jon.

Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:

> 
> What arouses indignation is that we're frogs sitting in a slowly- 
> heating cooking pot, and we've suddenly felt the twinge of pain.
> 


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