> Personally I have come to the conclusion that the best solution is virtual machines with a linux base system. Put every game that is sticky to windows into its own little container and just have hardware passed through.
Is there a Windows license available to consumers that allows simultaneous installation on multiple VMs under a non-Windows-based hypervisor?
> There is no need to regulate unethical employment practices when laborers have the freedom to seek employment elsewhere - the market can sort it out. But we need freedom of horizontal movement first.
And yet even in the supposedly so competitive SV tech market, abusive practices like forcing employees to sign arbitration agreements, at-will employment (can be dismissed with zero notice or severance and for no or any reason not prohibited by law), "unlimited" vacation that is really meant to discourage you from taking it, and long workweeks with no overtime pay are common.
Who doesn't get to deal with any of the above? Union employees (for the most part).
> The news has been full of dozens (maybe hundreds by now) of large and small companies using the tax change to increase employee wages and benefits.
No, there have been dozens or hundreds of companies claiming that tax cuts were responsible for employee compensation increases. Many of those were one-time bonuses, but the tax cuts are ongoing. In some cases where the benefits were ongoing (like Walmart's hourly pay increase), you'll find that they tend to coincide with the overall trend of state minimum wage increases. This is just PR: they're getting ahead of the trend and trying to attribute it to tax cuts rather than other forces.
Also, since employee compensation was tax-deductible even before the tax cut, taxes certainly weren't stopping companies from raising wages before the tax cut.
> At any rate, your software vendor has no legal responsibility to provide you with security updates. Maybe they should. But you’ll pay for that anyways.
Yes, those costs will ultimately be embedded in product pricing and borne by the customer, but that's good. It gives vendors a financial incentive to develop more secure software and reduce their security update costs (and earn more profit). (Nothing is perfectly secure, but a culture change and following certain practices can help. Think Microsoft pre-trustworthy computing memo and Microsoft today.)
In the old days with perpetually-licensed software, this was handled with a trial period (30-day demo or similar), or, where feasible, a feature-limited demo version (e.g. a game with one level as a demo). This is not a new problem or a problem without solutions.
I agree that subscriptions make perfect sense for services (because servers, support, etc. cost money on a monthly basis), but the trend seems to be to create an arbitrary reliance on a hosted service as a way to justify subscriptions. Luckily 1Password hasn't totally gone that way yet, since they still offer standalone licenses for local vaults, but I feel like it's the direction they're going.
> - It's unreasonable to expect people to pay the full price for minor security fixes that still need to go out
The ideal model for locally-run software, in my opinion, is to sell perpetual licenses to each major version for a one-time cost and promise security and maintenance updates for a certain period. New features can go into new major versions that users have to pay for (sometimes with discounted upgrade pricing), or, on a discretionary basis, as free updates.
This used to be the typical business model for locally-run software. Microsoft, for example, sold Windows versions for a one-time cost, promised security and some other level of updates until a certain year (and new features could be added on a discretionary basis), and provided upgrade pricing for new major versions that added new features. This kept control in users' hands, as their paid-for software could be used forever (at least until and unless external factors, like hardware incompatibilities, prevented it from working), though of course it would be very dumb to use, say, XP today on an Internet-connected machine. I am generally against subscription models for local software where there is no legitimate reliance on an outside service, and also against the trend of trying to create such a reliance for no legitimate reason ("We've added cloud sync and that's what the subscription is for. Servers cost money every month, which is why we're charging you every month." - except I can handle my own file storage and don't want your sync service).
If they have no incentive to upgrade, that's because the newer versions don't add any value for the user. This makes sense: 1Password is a pretty mature product at this point and there probably isn't much room to add new features, unless you want to expand the scope of the product.
That is to say that I personally (and again, this is just my opinion) don't care about any new features and would be unlikely to upgrade from version 6 on that basis. I may upgrade to ensure I will continue receiving security updates and OS and browser extension compatibility updates, but it would be nice to know how long such updates to version 7 are guaranteed for (presumably they will eventually release version 8 for a new fee and discontinue such updates to version 7).
> (and servers / APIs for it)
The users (like me) who are against subscriptions are only using local vaults (managing the storage sync ourselves) and do not care for or want the web/sync services.
Probably varies by jurisdiction, but I know in my jurisdiction, court fees and related costs (such as the cost of serving the summons on the defendant) are automatically added to the judgment if you win.
I hope we can differentiate "I want the New York Times to remove an article about me" from "I want Equifax to remove its business records about me because I don't consent to them collecting my data for commercial purposes."
The former would clearly run into 1st Amendment concerns, but I'm hopeful the latter can be allowed without the same concerns. Does the EFF oppose the latter type?
> 1Password also holds documents and notes; in my state, documents such as car insurance can be legally carried on your phone for traffic stops. I also have my health insurance cards in there for ease of use.
I wouldn't rely on this because it turns your phone into a single point of failure (your battery could die or your phone could fail at the wrong time). Similarly, I would never rely on mobile wallets without physical cards as a backup.
> The public's attention span is fleeting, noted one executive, and even massive data breaches that affected Yahoo, which included 3 billion accounts, and Equifax - 147.9 million accounts - haven't turned people off those services.
The public wasn't turned off of Equifax because they weren't Equifax's customers in the first place.
Right-to-work is strictly anti-union BS and has nothing to do with non-compete agreements. A quick search suggests that non-competes are enforceable in both VA and NC if they meet certain criteria.
> They wouldn't be as profitable, sure. Neither would Stripe.
It shouldn't even affect Stripe all that much. The CC fees are just a pass-through expense for them; their product is the infrastructure value-add, which AFAIK nobody is suggesting needs to be price-regulated.
One of the reasons the Federal Reserve was created was to eliminate rent-seeking by banks in check clearing. (The previous system was that banks would clear checks directly among each other, leading to abuses where banks would charge exorbitant fees to other banks.) I'd argue credit/debit cards are just as important today as checks were in 1913. A functioning economy requires a functioning payment system.
> The worker will still qualify for unemployment benefits
The worker would qualify for unemployment benefits even if fired for good-faith poor performance. For terminations, only gross misconduct (criminal acts, deliberately failing to work, etc.) is disqualifying.
Regarding the federal budget and debt, I suggest you read into modern monetary theory (MMT).
> How do I know this? Because it's the only logical thing. Corporations like stability because it makes their profits predictable and lets them control the mood in the room (innovation, regulation, etc). Low taxes for the rich mean chaos - an extremely large, underpaid, underfed, underrepresented bottom class will not be good for the rich in the long run. High taxes for the rich mean a well-sustained middle class, with money to spend on products made by the corporations. It is also a safer place, with less homelessness, less violence, less hatred.
Agreed. The US has enough economic leverage to ignore the silly threats of "we're going to move our business out of the US if you do [something]" or "the rich will move away if you do [something]." Fine, go ahead and stop operating in one of the largest developed markets in the world. Sounds like a very wise business move (not).