Well. In a one on one call with him once (he's my local member) I asked him why we could not protect individual rights with a charter of human rights.
I would describe the tone of his response as visceral.. He said to me:
"[I don't trust the courts in interpreting legislation like that. I would not want to give them an inch. Just look what they've done down in Victoria.]{paraphrased}
[As far as I'm concerned, the parliament is perfectly placed to decide what is, and is not a human right, and if you disagree with me, you can vote me out... ]{direct quote}"
I assume the VIC reference was to the judges that had been appointed most recently with track records of upholding human rights...
Depends on the price. I was able to return a 13 month old iPhone when apple announced the CSAM scanning (that they eventually abandoned) - I got a full refund. The phone costs enough that ACL considers it should operate for at least 2 years.
Had a miniature poodle go blind at my parents hiise when I was 17/18 and he was peeing everywhere in the house suddenly.
Spent a day watching and realised he was laying scent markers for navigation.
Cleaned up all the wee and started tagging the left side of every doorway with a different herb/spice (basil, thyme, Rosemary, paprika etc). Just grabbed some dried herbs and rubbed them in the bottom left of all the doorways.
Took the dog through the house on a lead, and let him smell each door and took him outside.
Pretty much stopped the inside peejng, unless we forgot to replace the herb/spice rubs, or mixed up which herb went where when we reapplied...
My friends started calling my place the KFC shack.
Please do keep voting with your wallet - its one of the few remaining ways to express our discontent!)
That being said, I feel like both of those examples are where the service provided by adobe and then Netflix are terrible.
Adobe is making you buy a whole year and Netflix is hassling you for "letting your pensioner mum watch your account".. To me, both of those are examples of bad service (coupled with cost).
For me, a counter example for me is amazon.com: I hate what they're doing to the retail landscape but find it hard to resist, as I find them SOOO convenient, and their customer service (for now) is absolutely stunning!!! Now if their prices were too high, I'd personally probably pay for that convenience a bit. (Where there model breaks for me completely is warranty major purchases: I've had warranty denied by manufacturers for items purchased through non approved amazon resellers. So now, for me, anything over $100 and I'm looking for direct purchase from the manufacturer as a preference. )
As Gabe Newell said: "Piracy isn't a pricing issue, its a service issue"
As my friend said: "every time a plastic video disc says " operation not permitted " a torrent is born...
As I say: "People will pay when it's easy, more reliable and more convenient." As a software product manager, I forbid my product from ever wasting developer cycles with copy protection.. It's expensive to deliver, annoying to real customers and doesn't make us any more money...
I've used the 3x multiplier for staff planning at services companies since the early 2000s.
Perhaps there are regional differences, but they've rung true for planning billable rates of return at every services company I've worked at in the last 20 years here in AU.
I realise that the services aspect isn't relevant, but having the sum of indirect staff costs equivalent to staff salary cost when office space is involved isn't a massive stretch in my experience. (Indirect costs would include office rent, utilities, infrastructure and a share of shared functions such as IT, HR, facilities etc...)
When running a business, you need to budget 3x salary for actual TCO of a staff member:
1x covers their direct salary
2x covers retirement fund, electricity, office space, and infrastructure items unlike server and laptops for corporate use etc.
The 3x multiplier is for when you're a services company, and that represents a possibly profit margin.
So for signal, your $380k becomes $190k which in my experience is average for a US tech sw dev at a mid to early senior level.
I donate to signal monthly and I have no problems with the costs they're posting. I work in SV tech and I've seen 20x worse numbers.
Australia's Basic Online Safety Expectations made it required by law:
"If the service uses encryption, the provider of the service will
take reasonable steps to develop and implement processes to detect and address material
or activity on the service that is or may be unlawful or harmful"
I live in a subtropical area.
Short answer: YES!!.
I now religiously use a filament dryer, VAC bags and loose silica beads that I bag my self into DIY teabags and then redry in the oven.
I also make sure to dry new filament for 24hours before using it the first time...
Since I started doing this for PLA and PETG, many of my previous my print issues dissapeared...