hi, runner. your post rung a bell in us. $3,000 is a lot of money for anyone. just because some are too numb or dumb to admit it doesn't make it less of a large amount. our first computer we bought through American Express' arrangement with AT&T. took us 12 months to pay it off, and sometimes those payments weren't easy. i look and listen to our offspring who have had to find it in THEIR budgets to get one in order to help their kids keep up with the smartys at school, and see $3000 tacked onto $3,000 tacked onto $3000, etc. Pretty soon I see the entire family unit having shelled out over $33,000 for these things that are obsolete in one sense based on msft's greed. and tht is just for starters.
yes, something IS wrong here, and the Y2K bug isn't going to fix it all either, which is going to make that $33,000 (theft)/investment look pretty big when it all comes tumbling down.
yes, and then there is ink cartridges, paper, phone access charges, membership, anti-virus software, business application software, email "upgrade" s/w, game s/w, game controllers, and the inevitable fighting over who's turn it is to use it.
yes, if someone would have told me back in the 50s when i first heard of this thing that something so addictive and so financially crippling would grip this population's fancy by the 10's of thousands of dollars, i would have told any such speaker, they were nuts. but then we weren't paying basketball players 8 figure salaries either.
we do make our choices, and your post made several good points. |
