1,284 karma · joined January 29, 2008
Since this seems to come up every once in a while: my opinions are my own and do not represent those of my employer (Microsoft).
Also, it's likely that your past experience is with the old OneDrive for Business client. Last year the normal OneDrive client learned to sync OneDrive for Business data, and reliability and performance improved quite a bit.
(I worked on OneDrive until last summer, but I don't currently work at Microsoft.)
- Having a kid? Now your whole extended family is available to give you help and advice, to babysit, to be there for you when you need them.
- Need a job? It's a lot easier to find one when you have a personal network in a place already.
- Something terrible happen in your life? You now have a built in set of folks to help you through it.
There's incredible value in having a large local support group. Yes, it's possible to compensate for the lack of it with friends, and those of us who have moved far from home tend to do that, but that's a pretty straightforward second best compared to being with family, people you've grown up with, etc.
What we're seeing with the hours-long lines right now is that this simply isn't true. The TSA has no particular incentive to reduce the number of hoops you have to jump through: if anything, a summer like this will probably increase their budget.
So, indeed: pay up for PreCheck and smile because they've given you the opportunity.
That's not to mention that they have to deal with maintaining old versions of their products, and support costs that could easily exceed the LTV of a particular customer.
As a customer, I am often hesitant to shell out the big bucks for subscription software, especially because both Microsoft and Adobe have set up a pretty clear ceiling on what I consider to be worthwhile by charging $10/month for really really compelling product offerings (O365 Home for Microsoft, Photoshop & Lightroom for Adobe). So a "small"/less compelling app has to charge a good bit less for me to be willing to pay.
But in the long run, I'd rather pay, say, $20/year for a useful piece of software in perpetuity than $100 once every five years--because that way I always have the latest version and don't have to think about whether I really want to upgrade or not. And that aligns my incentives with those of the developer and reduces their support costs.
Over time, I imagine small software developers will figure out what a reasonable price is for subscriptions, and more software of any complexity will converge on this model. I, for one, don't especially mind.
The point is, you can have that vision for a while, but eventually the market changes such that the threat (or opportunity) to your business isn't so direct to be obvious like Instagram was to Facebook.
Do you have any examples?
And of course landlords (since you're obviously using rentier as a pejorative) DO provide a valuable service: housing to people who either value the flexibility of renting or don't have the finances to buy housing where they live.
Your apparent disagreement with the entire system of rental property around the world is certainly principled, but singling out Mr. Money Mustache as some kind of hypocrite for earning money off his investments is absurd on its face. Are you also opposed to people buying dividend-issuing stocks?
What exactly is that assumption based on?
It's been abundantly demonstrated that smaller servings do help people follow through on efforts to reduce their food intake. I don't see any reason Coke should be different.
"Even now, the schools in Kansas City, Missouri, are effectively segregated, with almost all white children at private schools. Just nine per cent of pupils in the state system are white. Almost 90 per cent are on free lunches."
That statistic was totally shocking to me. Are there any other places in the U.S. where there's such a dramatic disparity in the race of students in public school relative to the overall population?
Hopefully this can help you.
(Disclosure: I work at Microsoft but not on PhotoDNA.)
If it is to learn something, the answer is obvious: build it anyway. You will still learn pretty much all of the things you otherwise would have.
If it is because you feel that the world needs this thing to exist, and it'll become a better place because it does: see if you can contribute to the other people's work. If not, see if what they're doing meets that need and be happy that other people shared your vision of a problem to be solved.
If it's because you wanted to make a company and earn a living: keep going. There are thousands of niches in businesses. You can find yours.