My wife’s heart medication, which is not a daily thing, only on demand, is staggering without insurance. Her kids in the Philippines send it to her for $10.

Since the Big Beautiful Bill killed my Obamacare, I stopped going to the doctor. Starting to build up some problems but my wife just got “promoted” off the temp company and the insurance isn’t much more for both of us than only her.

Go sell that where you work! You and I are not the customer, business is the customer, and catering to enterprise is a whole 'nother ball game.

Yeah but try fucking around with Excel like that! Killed, golden goose, all that.

Bingo! But MS has managed all that brilliantly with Excel, mainly by NOT fucking with it.

My last job used Google for email, auth across multiple apps and office productivity. Worked fairly well, but HR and Accounting still needed Office.

I argued Active Directory would be as cheap or cheaper and far easier to manage, AND give us options we didn’t have. For some reason that whole place hated AD.The misconceptions were staggering, as if all they knew was from Windows Server 2003.

No one said Apple was a good company, just better for privacy.

Cook was giving a toddler a shiny for favoritism. That’s pathetic on Trump, not Tim.

Until I read the last sentence, I had no idea what you were talking about. You sound like you could whip up a media center PC easy enough. The machine I’m typing this on doubles as our media center. I have to take the mouse to the coffee table for a movie remote, but that’s the only hassle, and it isn’t a hassle for me.

I feel like the tech is already in place. What do you want that isn’t out there?

Been shouting at clouds forever. Capitalism ain’t the problem, it’s the unfettered mergers and near monopolies. When I was a kid, the FCC/FTC would have laughed. “No, you can’t control that much media.”

Now? Exactly as you said.

Both our TVs are Rokus, internet connected and I’ve been too lazy to configure the firewall. Only ads I see are on the home menu screen, and those are slightly annoying but unobtrusive.

Wife’s TV in the bedroom is only used for YT. (I think, that’s her thing.) Mine’s a second monitor for my PC to watched pirated content.

Where and how are people seeing ads?

"Here we have yet another case of a person dangerously confusing “how he thinks things ought to be” with “how things actually are.” Couple of quotes down: https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/41156208-deadly-force---understanding-your-right-to-self-defense Off topic, but interesting in itself.

No other options, must pay. :( The old timers had a word for how to fight such bullshit. Sounded like “shrike”? Something like that? Perhaps, “Buoy snot”? Anyway, they had some sort of spell by which they refused to give evil corporations their money. No idea how that worked, lost knowledge. (Queue 100 comments about Game Pass being a requirement for modern life, like electricity and water.)

Basic economics? Drop your low-value customers for high-value customers, make more money for less support and infrastructure (and accounting and HR and payroll and…) This is Business 101. Two things kick my ass: 1) No one seems to get this thing. 2) Everyone acts like these leaching services are a necessity.

Drop them and move on! Choose an entertainment ecosystem that fucked you? Lesson learned. Move on. Still want it? Steal what you can. I have no idea what’s on broadcast, cable or subscription TV. My home-rolled VPN is $6/mo., done.

And where can this sentiment be found?

Was gonna go for it but it’s been patched. :(

https://tenor.com/view/dave-chappelle-ihate-you-i-dont-even-know-you-i-hate-your-guts-hate-gif-5004602

The GOP dropped the “party of fiscal responsibility” over under George Bush. I haven’t heard them spout that bullshit in nearly 2 decades.

Much of the bank bailout actually made the treasury a profit. It was paid back.

When your ass is truly on the line, your brain will take over quite nicely. I don’t mean mere fear or apprehension, I mean, “I will die if I don’t act as needed.” Many go their whole lives without that experience. This is not an “illness” thing.

You got an economic system in your back pocket that doesn’t allow money to funnel upwards? Bring it out! It’s not capitalism you’re complaining about, it’s plutocracy we’re living under.

Adam Smith would be horrified at our monopolies. 1980s conservatives would be horrified! Yeah, the economy has always served the wealthy, but it wasn’t anything like today.