4 ms·

This unwarranted government intervention is not good though I hate the bloatware. Everytime I visit my parents I end up spending half an hour removing browser

by tn13 13y ago

This unwarranted government intervention is not good though I hate the bloatware. Everytime I visit my parents I end up spending half an hour removing browser toolbars, make your PC fast software. So I bought them a brand new Lenovo laptop just to find that there were 22 different kind of bloatware from DNS related stuff to browser toolbars to some weird webcam and what not software. No matter how much I hate them, these bloatware help reduce prices of the laptops making them more affordable to many. Let the market function well. Government intervention is unwarranted.

joosters 13y ago
How much money do you reckon they saved on the laptop? How much is your time worth?
- cmaggard 13y ago
  Are you implying that parent should be charging his or her parents for the work, or that he or she should cover the difference out of pocket?
  - anonymoushn 13y ago
    Certainly he or his parents should value his time at something other than zero, and maybe be willing to pay a little more for a computer that is identical but demands fewer hours of AIDS removal.
  - andybak 13y ago
    If I were him then I think I'd be suggesting that people tend to ignore externalities when praising markets.
  - joosters 13y ago
    I was implying that the money saved on the laptop is pretty small, so this 'benefit' to laptop owners is pretty insignificant and totally outweighed by the extra hassle or loss in performance / reliability of the computer. And I'd recommend to anyone doing tech support for parents that they carefully guide them into purchasing a decent, maintainable machine. It's not up to me to tell OP how that gets paid for. (I've ended up buying my dad a computer to avoid him picking up a 'bargain' machine from the supermarket, just because it'd be me that ends up fixing/reinstalling that crap and recovering data...)
    - tn13 13y ago
      Your observation is true for techies but not the general population. Understand that if there was no benefit to putting bloatware no company would have spent their resources on it. For me the benefit of saving $20 is small but not for many people out there. I know many people who think Macbooks are just white colored laptops.
- rtpg 13y ago
  this is an unsourced data point, but I remember reading (on multiple ocasions) that OEM installs can cost something from 10 cents to a dollar. So even at the high end, you're maybe saving 10 to 15 dollars...
  - 2muchcoffeeman 13y ago
    And is this actually realised as a savings to the consumer? I'd imagine it works more like selling advertising space. The bloatware is another source of revenue. Not a means to lower prices. If they were really concerned about maximising consumer value, they wouldn't keep picking dumb prices that end in '9.99'.
    - tn13 13y ago
      Prices are mostly determined by the competition and not by the seller. Say Sony manufactures a laptop at $100 and Lenovo at $102. If Lenovo has to be competition they have to somehow shove off that additional $2 required to make themselves on par with Sony. So every penny counts.
- tn13 13y ago
  My friends tell me they earn anywhere between $1-$25 depending on many factors. Ignore the techies. Normal people search on internet to find the cheapest laptop they want. People spend hours and days to save $15 on a laptop. They do not understand the difference between Computer with bloatware and Computer without bloatware. I have met many people who talk about "Ask Menu" on internet explorer and come to think that it is a part of IE.
RivieraKid 13y ago
Under perfect market assumption, governement intervation may be wrong. But the laptop market is very different from the theoretical perfect market model. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_market http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_market
- georgemcbay 13y ago
  And the cellphone market is worse yet, much, much worse. At least here in the US, I can't speak for how it works in South Korea. A regulation like this in the US would just be a bandaid (one I'd welcome) on the much, much larger problem of spectrum use/abuse resulting in few enough players to allow massive price fixing and few real consumer options. There isn't a violin in the world small enough for me to play when the government issues regulations to protect consumers against the horrible actions of cellphone carriers (and by extension the cellphone vendors that serve them), ISPs, cable companies, etc. They are all fucking horrible and lobby incessantly for government protection when it benefits their lockin and then cry like some little bitch koalas[1] who fell out of a tree when the shoe is on the other foot. [1] http://www.textfiles.com/uploads/koalas.txt http://www.textfiles.com/uploads/koalas.txt
tomkin 13y ago
This is OK, so long as the social consensus is aware of this fact. When average people hear "This comes with Windows 8", there is an inherit understanding as to what that means, and I don't think the bloatware is assumed, or that the average consumer is even aware that it is bloatware, and not part of the experience marketed to them. I'm not sure how you would introduce bloatware to the average consumer, but right now it just comes across as a sneaky decision, not consumer-driven one.
- scholia 13y ago
  There's stuff that Microsoft ships as part of Windows 8, when it ships to OEMs. You could take the view that all of it's wanted, even though it includes things like Bing apps. (Historically, the US government tried to stop Microsoft including IE, and the EU tried to stop it including Windows Media Player.) Then there's the stuff that OEMs ship on real PCs. Microsoft doesn't know what they ship, but it usually includes PUPs or Potentially Unwanted Programs. Some of these are added by the manufacturer (particularly HP and Lenovo) and some of them are added because of paid distribution deals. They may be "trialware" such as anti-virus software from which the OEM makes a recurring income. So there are three types of non-essential program, and I don't see how most consumers can possibly tell them apart. This situation did involve some US government intervention. The US DoJ anti-trust case against Microsoft enshrined the OEMs' right to ship what they liked, and prevented Microsoft from charging the top 10 OEMs different prices. That stopped Microsoft from, for example, offering deals to OEMs who would install Windows free of crapware or with optimized performance.
hocuspocus 13y ago
I'd have a lot to say about the Korean government's interventionism, but I believe they're right for once. Firstly, they aren't banning carriers from shipping phones with preloaded crapware, they're forcing them to make it uninstallable, as every non-system app should be. Secondly, you obviously have no idea of the state of the market in Korea. Carrier subsidies are still the norm, your typical Samsung smartphone ends up costing 50% more than in open markets like Europe. Moreover, consumers don't have a lot of options. HTC, Motorola and Sony pulled out. You cannot find non-carrier versions of the Korean phones. Windows phones aren't sold either. Basically you're down to overpriced iPhones or the Nexus 5 (which was the first Nexus to be released in Korea without some ridiculous delay compared to other parts of the world).
thkim 13y ago
This law is about giving a choice to the consumer. It doesn't prevent carriers or manufacturers from pre-installing apps. All it says is make the app deletable. Would you also say all the other opt-outs as "unwarranted government intervention"?
frozenjuice 13y ago
> Let the market function well. I am yet to ever see this. I also do not ever remember being able to choose between the same phone with and without bloatware so I am not sure how the market has ever been able to decide.

by tn13 13y ago

joosters 13y ago

How much money do you reckon they saved on the laptop? How much is your time worth?

cmaggard 13y ago
Are you implying that parent should be charging his or her parents for the work, or that he or she should cover the difference out of pocket?
- anonymoushn 13y ago
  Certainly he or his parents should value his time at something other than zero, and maybe be willing to pay a little more for a computer that is identical but demands fewer hours of AIDS removal.
- andybak 13y ago
  If I were him then I think I'd be suggesting that people tend to ignore externalities when praising markets.
- joosters 13y ago
  I was implying that the money saved on the laptop is pretty small, so this 'benefit' to laptop owners is pretty insignificant and totally outweighed by the extra hassle or loss in performance / reliability of the computer. And I'd recommend to anyone doing tech support for parents that they carefully guide them into purchasing a decent, maintainable machine. It's not up to me to tell OP how that gets paid for. (I've ended up buying my dad a computer to avoid him picking up a 'bargain' machine from the supermarket, just because it'd be me that ends up fixing/reinstalling that crap and recovering data...)
  - tn13 13y ago
    Your observation is true for techies but not the general population. Understand that if there was no benefit to putting bloatware no company would have spent their resources on it. For me the benefit of saving $20 is small but not for many people out there. I know many people who think Macbooks are just white colored laptops.
rtpg 13y ago
this is an unsourced data point, but I remember reading (on multiple ocasions) that OEM installs can cost something from 10 cents to a dollar. So even at the high end, you're maybe saving 10 to 15 dollars...
- 2muchcoffeeman 13y ago
  And is this actually realised as a savings to the consumer? I'd imagine it works more like selling advertising space. The bloatware is another source of revenue. Not a means to lower prices. If they were really concerned about maximising consumer value, they wouldn't keep picking dumb prices that end in '9.99'.
  - tn13 13y ago
    Prices are mostly determined by the competition and not by the seller. Say Sony manufactures a laptop at $100 and Lenovo at $102. If Lenovo has to be competition they have to somehow shove off that additional $2 required to make themselves on par with Sony. So every penny counts.
tn13 13y ago
My friends tell me they earn anywhere between $1-$25 depending on many factors. Ignore the techies. Normal people search on internet to find the cheapest laptop they want. People spend hours and days to save $15 on a laptop. They do not understand the difference between Computer with bloatware and Computer without bloatware. I have met many people who talk about "Ask Menu" on internet explorer and come to think that it is a part of IE.

RivieraKid 13y ago

Under perfect market assumption, governement intervation may be wrong. But the laptop market is very different from the theoretical perfect market model. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_market http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_market

georgemcbay 13y ago
And the cellphone market is worse yet, much, much worse. At least here in the US, I can't speak for how it works in South Korea. A regulation like this in the US would just be a bandaid (one I'd welcome) on the much, much larger problem of spectrum use/abuse resulting in few enough players to allow massive price fixing and few real consumer options. There isn't a violin in the world small enough for me to play when the government issues regulations to protect consumers against the horrible actions of cellphone carriers (and by extension the cellphone vendors that serve them), ISPs, cable companies, etc. They are all fucking horrible and lobby incessantly for government protection when it benefits their lockin and then cry like some little bitch koalas[1] who fell out of a tree when the shoe is on the other foot. [1] http://www.textfiles.com/uploads/koalas.txt http://www.textfiles.com/uploads/koalas.txt

tomkin 13y ago

This is OK, so long as the social consensus is aware of this fact. When average people hear "This comes with Windows 8", there is an inherit understanding as to what that means, and I don't think the bloatware is assumed, or that the average consumer is even aware that it is bloatware, and not part of the experience marketed to them. I'm not sure how you would introduce bloatware to the average consumer, but right now it just comes across as a sneaky decision, not consumer-driven one.

scholia 13y ago
There's stuff that Microsoft ships as part of Windows 8, when it ships to OEMs. You could take the view that all of it's wanted, even though it includes things like Bing apps. (Historically, the US government tried to stop Microsoft including IE, and the EU tried to stop it including Windows Media Player.) Then there's the stuff that OEMs ship on real PCs. Microsoft doesn't know what they ship, but it usually includes PUPs or Potentially Unwanted Programs. Some of these are added by the manufacturer (particularly HP and Lenovo) and some of them are added because of paid distribution deals. They may be "trialware" such as anti-virus software from which the OEM makes a recurring income. So there are three types of non-essential program, and I don't see how most consumers can possibly tell them apart. This situation did involve some US government intervention. The US DoJ anti-trust case against Microsoft enshrined the OEMs' right to ship what they liked, and prevented Microsoft from charging the top 10 OEMs different prices. That stopped Microsoft from, for example, offering deals to OEMs who would install Windows free of crapware or with optimized performance.

hocuspocus 13y ago

I'd have a lot to say about the Korean government's interventionism, but I believe they're right for once. Firstly, they aren't banning carriers from shipping phones with preloaded crapware, they're forcing them to make it uninstallable, as every non-system app should be. Secondly, you obviously have no idea of the state of the market in Korea. Carrier subsidies are still the norm, your typical Samsung smartphone ends up costing 50% more than in open markets like Europe. Moreover, consumers don't have a lot of options. HTC, Motorola and Sony pulled out. You cannot find non-carrier versions of the Korean phones. Windows phones aren't sold either. Basically you're down to overpriced iPhones or the Nexus 5 (which was the first Nexus to be released in Korea without some ridiculous delay compared to other parts of the world).

thkim 13y ago

This law is about giving a choice to the consumer. It doesn't prevent carriers or manufacturers from pre-installing apps. All it says is make the app deletable. Would you also say all the other opt-outs as "unwarranted government intervention"?

frozenjuice 13y ago

> Let the market function well. I am yet to ever see this. I also do not ever remember being able to choose between the same phone with and without bloatware so I am not sure how the market has ever been able to decide.