Microsoft, Best Buy accused of Net scam

[Waccoon]

I had the same problem with RealPlayer.  I cancelled my subsription to RealOne Goldpass after I found out they were charging me $30 a year for the membership, but EACH movie was preceeded by advertisements.  I did NOT pay to watch ads.

Unfortunately, they kept my credit card number on file, and the next year, they re-subsribed me to another year's membership for an outrageous $50, even though I told them I *cancelled*.  They sent me no invoice, and no notification by e-mail.  I didn't find out about the charge until I got my bank statement.  (Correction:  credit card statement.  I never use a debit card for online purchases).

Bank statements are mailed out every 30 days.  RealPlayer has a 15 day cancellation policy.  So, when I called them to ask what was going on, they told me they couldn't do anything because it was past the cancellation date.

Bull.  I MADE them give me my money back, on the grounds that they sent me no invoice, so I couldn't respond to the charge within the cancellation period.  It took me about an hour on the phone, though, and at no point did they offer a partial refund for unused services.  It was all or nothing.

The result?  I'll never deal with Real Inc. again.  Of course, they still have my credit card number on file, somewhere.   It's bad enough that RealPlayer acts like a virus and is nearly impossible to fully uninstall, but... then this?  Who in their right mind would tolerate ads in paid software?  Are we going to see tons of ad on cable and satellite TV, now, too?
:whack:

They base everything on the premise that it's not worth your time to argue.  All you have to do is rationalize that it's not worth THEIR time to argue, either.  If they're smart, they'll see the logic in that.  Where I work, we have to maintain a gross profit margin  of $80-$100 an hour per employee to be profitable.  That's a good set of numbers to keep in mind.  (...at least in the field of sales.  I don't know what general loss margins are for phone support markets).

It should also be noted that this has nothing to do with Windows or MS.  All computer companies are getting more brazen about how they do business.  If Amiga were to make a comeback, it would only be a matter of time before this crap started happening.

[Waccoon]

I sure wish Linux or something would come along and work as well or at least as simple to use as Windows. M$ needs to have it stuck to them. I sure hope OS4 comes out and is as good as its looking to be.

I doubt many Linux enthusiasts want a Linux that's so easy to use.  Programmers make software for programmers.  All it took was a couple bad (and bably labeled) button pushes to completely break Phat Linux, the last (and final) Linux I've bothered to try.  Linux people know nothing about interface design.  I would think Amiga people would see that, since AmigaOS2 and 3 had probably the best interface ever, at least at the time.  I really hate this attitude that Linux will destroy everything.  It certainly doesn't encourage developers to make new OS's that are designed from the ground up for normal humans.

The usual solution these days is that Linux machines come almost completely pre-configured.  When I installed Phat Linux, it essentially asked for a few drivers, a root password, and immediately boot up into Gnome.  So, if you want to change drivers, what do you do?  Gnome doesn't exactly come with a Device Manager, and if it does, I had a hard time finding it just by digging throught the menus.  When I shutdown my machine and restarted, something got screwed up and Gnome boot up all garbled.  There's no safe mode in Gnome (or, again, I couldn't find it), so I just re-installed -- something I though only Windows users had to do.  I tried to use a flat-mode VGA driver that would cause the least compatibility problems, but it just told me the basic VGA driver wouldn't work with my hardware.  Don't ask me why a flat mode driver wouldn't work with a GeForce3, and I wasn't going to spend hours of my life asking geeks what to do.  I ditched Linux... again.

Yay... 10 years of development, and this is what Linux distributions deliver!  Linux is destined to stay a programmer's system.  Normal people don't have time to dig through documentation for 5 hours to find out why something isn't working, or why pushing a button that says 'push me' makes the machine vomit errors that are either too technical, or too vague.  I never thought I'd see a Linux box say, "An error occured."  I thought only Macs gave messages that useless!

Linux is being pulled in all the wrong directions.  It's getting closer to what Windows is now (bloat and all), but don't think Microsoft doesn't have new OS ideas.  The existing WIndows platform has less than 5 years to live.  So, what is Microsoft going to replace it with?  Microsoft may not consist of the best programmers in the world, but they have a VERY good understanding of user needs -- with marketing skills to boot.  Microsoft can easily out-design any Linux developer, and they perform enough usability testing to ensure their designs work.  At least better than they used to.

Free software developers don't work for money, but they do work for fame and fun.  Interface design and product testing is not glamorous or fun.  I don't think a free OS like Linux will ever break into the commercial OS market.  Linux people don't understand (or care about) the needs of ordinary desktop users.  Why should they?  What's in it for them?

That's why I had hope for Amiga Inc.  That's why I'm looking forward to OS4.  Linux is a hacker's OS.  I just hope Hyperion has the budget to allow for enough usability testing.  I still haven't gotten over the horrid design of the new HD Toolbox.  Usability will make or break AmigaOS in the long term.