5 ms·

Most users say they want stability but when it comes to actually paying, unfortunately most users will only pay for features, especially new shinny ones that de

Most users say they want stability but when it comes to actually paying, unfortunately most users will only pay for features, especially new shinny ones that demo well. This is the challenge faced by software companies.

loopbit 11y ago
I buy a product or, more often than not nowadays, pay for a service for the features. I keep using the product/service if it's stable. I have no use for a service with loads of nice features that don't work.
- mahouse 11y ago
  Only that you only pay once for an OS, so by the time you realise many features are buggy, you can't just unpay.
  - tajen 11y ago
    I pay twice the price of the hardware to be able to use Mac OS X, which is stable. Except, since 10.10, it kernel-panics once a week. I'd pay 100-200€ per year for a good OS.
    - loopbit 11y ago
      It's a very, very long shot, but could it be that you have virtualbox 4 installed? With 10.10 and 10.11 I had the same issue, caused by the kext from virtualbox. Removing it and installing version 5 solved everything and haven't had a kernel panic since then. If not virtualbox, I'd look at other kext you might have there.
pjc50 11y ago
Yeah. Everyone needs to justify their existence. While quite a lot of people thought Win7 was great and that Microsoft should just stop there, maybe with a few minor improvements (e.g. fix CMD.EXE), they decided to completely change it in response to the tablet "threat". I have a cheap Win8 tablet. It's weird. Quite slick in a lot of ways, but you can go back to the old UI and see where all the bodges are.
jimbokun 11y ago
Not buying your argument. Mac is a much more viable choice today than in the past, and I think the Mac's slowly but steadily increasing market share has something to do with the perceived reliability and stability of the platform. I'm only basing this off of personal experience. I have Windows at work and Mac at home.
- popmystack 11y ago
  I'm sorry, if we're talking about features being buggy, OS X is not something you exactly what to point a finger at as a good example of an OS that has features implemented in a stable way. Thankfully, OS X is cheap/free. I use OS X, Windows, and Arch literally every day of my life, both at work and home. To be quite honest, I blame consumers for all this non-sense. No one wants to actually pay for software. I can go into this in a more nuanced fashion, but I seriously think software across the board is a good bit cheaper than it needs to be. From OS's to games and everything in between.
  - nothrabannosir 11y ago
    OS X is not cheap, and definitely not free. The price is factored into the laptop. This is not some pedantic arm-chair econ101 argument; they are able to charge a higher price due to having OS X as part of the product, and they do. Arch is actually for free.
    - popmystack 11y ago
      >they are able to charge a higher price due to having OS X as part of the product, and they do. That's a suspect claim. I am not saying the cost isn't accounted for, but claiming that they charge a premium simply because they have OS X is dubious at best. I don't consider OS X a selling point in any regard and I'm not sure even Apple could. Of course this is largely my opinion. I would find it kind of funny if they really considered it a selling point.
      - douche 11y ago
criddell 11y ago
End users have (mostly) never paid for operating systems. I use Windows mostly because that's what the applications I use require. There's nothing about Windows itself that is compelling and frankly, Windows has been good enough for a long, long time. I really wish Microsoft had stayed the course and maintained separate desktop and mobile operating systems. Windows CE had problems, but they could have fixed that without messing with Windows.
mark-r 11y ago
If I have a choice of buying Windows 7 or Windows 10, I will pick Windows 7. Does that mean I'm paying for stability?
- flurpitude 11y ago
  I develop daily on Windows and Visual Studio. The latest versions of both are so horribly unstable and buggy that our team's productivity is being seriously damaged. What the hell happened to Microsoft's quality control? In Windows 7 and earlier versions of Visual Studio you didn't feel like you were walking on thin ice all the time.
  - HillRat 11y ago
    One has to wonder if maybe all those laid-off STEs and SDETs were actually adding value after all....

loopbit 11y ago

I buy a product or, more often than not nowadays, pay for a service for the features. I keep using the product/service if it's stable. I have no use for a service with loads of nice features that don't work.

mahouse 11y ago
Only that you only pay once for an OS, so by the time you realise many features are buggy, you can't just unpay.
- tajen 11y ago
  I pay twice the price of the hardware to be able to use Mac OS X, which is stable. Except, since 10.10, it kernel-panics once a week. I'd pay 100-200€ per year for a good OS.
  - loopbit 11y ago
    It's a very, very long shot, but could it be that you have virtualbox 4 installed? With 10.10 and 10.11 I had the same issue, caused by the kext from virtualbox. Removing it and installing version 5 solved everything and haven't had a kernel panic since then. If not virtualbox, I'd look at other kext you might have there.

pjc50 11y ago

Yeah. Everyone needs to justify their existence. While quite a lot of people thought Win7 was great and that Microsoft should just stop there, maybe with a few minor improvements (e.g. fix CMD.EXE), they decided to completely change it in response to the tablet "threat". I have a cheap Win8 tablet. It's weird. Quite slick in a lot of ways, but you can go back to the old UI and see where all the bodges are.

jimbokun 11y ago

Not buying your argument. Mac is a much more viable choice today than in the past, and I think the Mac's slowly but steadily increasing market share has something to do with the perceived reliability and stability of the platform. I'm only basing this off of personal experience. I have Windows at work and Mac at home.

popmystack 11y ago
I'm sorry, if we're talking about features being buggy, OS X is not something you exactly what to point a finger at as a good example of an OS that has features implemented in a stable way. Thankfully, OS X is cheap/free. I use OS X, Windows, and Arch literally every day of my life, both at work and home. To be quite honest, I blame consumers for all this non-sense. No one wants to actually pay for software. I can go into this in a more nuanced fashion, but I seriously think software across the board is a good bit cheaper than it needs to be. From OS's to games and everything in between.
- nothrabannosir 11y ago
  OS X is not cheap, and definitely not free. The price is factored into the laptop. This is not some pedantic arm-chair econ101 argument; they are able to charge a higher price due to having OS X as part of the product, and they do. Arch is actually for free.
  - popmystack 11y ago
    >they are able to charge a higher price due to having OS X as part of the product, and they do. That's a suspect claim. I am not saying the cost isn't accounted for, but claiming that they charge a premium simply because they have OS X is dubious at best. I don't consider OS X a selling point in any regard and I'm not sure even Apple could. Of course this is largely my opinion. I would find it kind of funny if they really considered it a selling point.
    - douche 11y ago

criddell 11y ago

End users have (mostly) never paid for operating systems. I use Windows mostly because that's what the applications I use require. There's nothing about Windows itself that is compelling and frankly, Windows has been good enough for a long, long time. I really wish Microsoft had stayed the course and maintained separate desktop and mobile operating systems. Windows CE had problems, but they could have fixed that without messing with Windows.

mark-r 11y ago

If I have a choice of buying Windows 7 or Windows 10, I will pick Windows 7. Does that mean I'm paying for stability?

flurpitude 11y ago
I develop daily on Windows and Visual Studio. The latest versions of both are so horribly unstable and buggy that our team's productivity is being seriously damaged. What the hell happened to Microsoft's quality control? In Windows 7 and earlier versions of Visual Studio you didn't feel like you were walking on thin ice all the time.
- HillRat 11y ago
  One has to wonder if maybe all those laid-off STEs and SDETs were actually adding value after all....