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| Windows ecosystem reboot: bad news if you move country |
| By Thom Holwerda on 2012-10-04 14:11:18 |
| "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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| Comment by Luminair |
| By Luminair on 2012-10-04 21:04:34 |
| f cloud storage, really. nothing I have is so big that I can't store it myself. lets have a cheer for data ownership and liberty. |
 - Score: 4 |
| RE[2]: Not Only MS |
| By franksands on 2012-10-04 21:42:43 |
| But isn't in their own interest, and their shareholders interest, to sell as much as possible? Wouldn't CBS be better of selling to the whole world directly than having to go through all these loops, with different rules in each country it approaches? |
| - Score: 1 |
| Ouch! |
| By Drunkula on 2012-10-05 12:48:35 |
| I'd hate to lose all that because I moved and MS is too lazy/incompetent to fix it. Shame on MS! |
| - Score: 1 |
| Sentimental? |
| By Soulbender on 2012-10-06 04:55:01 |
| I'd say it has nothing to do with the sentimental value but everything to do with having access to products you have legally purchased. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[2]: Not better with the Apple AppStore |
| By zimbatm on 2012-10-06 17:22:45 |
| And you still have access to your old purchases ? |
| - Score: 1 |
| RE[3]: Not Only MS |
| By bassbeast on 2012-10-07 09:29:06 |
|
<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. This is why I truly hope the cartels go broke, things simply won't get better as long as they exist. They are already losing their stranglehold on audiences as more and more discover Internet radio but 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. But don't blame MSFT for this one, although they do tons of boneheaded moves (cough Windows 8 cough) in this case they have no choice, its the IP owners that set the region rules and to get worldwide distribution rights would cost so much that MSFT wouldn't even break even. Its greed friend, pure unadulterated greed on the part of the media cartels and game publishers. Hell watch the "Wil Wheaton Dr Who" rant on YouTube, he did the "right thing" by buying his Dr Who episodes from Amazon only to go across the border into Canada and have his videos locked. As he said "If I would have just torrented the episodes i could have been watching them". |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE: Live Mesh also dropped |
| By sukru on 2012-10-07 23:47:57 |
|
Yes, I was using live mesh to sync my music collection across my computers, and no other system was free and reliable (except for writing my own rsync scripts). Anyways, Microsoft seems to be consolidating their services, and decided to cut something people actually use. Fortunately they offered a free 25GB skydrive for older users, and it makes up for now (my collection is around ~15GB). |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[4]: Not Only MS |
| By jgagnon on 2012-10-09 12:31:57 |
|
> 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. A HUGE chunk of the overhead for music is all of the production and promotion work that goes into making the original copy, so to speak. A lot of people have to get paid money to make it all happen, especially on the promotion side. The costs of making a hard copy (CD, case, printed material) are very low, and in volume is likely less than 50 cents per copy. So changing the distribution medium from a CD to an MP3 file still doesn't change their cost structure by much. And before I get pounced on, I'm not promoting the outrageous pricing structure they have in place for music, movies, or games. On a personal note though, I think buying a song for a dollar is fine and even a good deal for a song I like. The part I hate about it is how little of that dollar is actually given to the artist. It is a far cry better than paying $20 for a CD just to get that one song. I long for a day when we can buy directly from artists and cut out the middle man entirely for these things. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[4]: Not Only MS |
| By zima on 2012-10-11 23:59:03 |
|
> <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 |
| - Score: 2 |
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