Re: TeX/LaTeX isn't easy

blmblm@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
No suggestions there, but if you're willing to pay a modest amount,
you'll probably get some suggestions.

I'm afraid that's out of the question. Even if I could afford to pay, I
don't have a credit card, and paying for anything online always seems
to require either a credit card, or jumping through an awful lot of
hoops, and usually simply requires a credit card, period.

There's also a conscientious objection: it would mean paying, each
month, $x + y for the same level of Internet service I once got by just
paying $x. Knuckling under and accepting what amounts to a price
increase will send the message that big corporations (acting
individually or collectively) can hike the effective price for a
certain package of services and I'll meekly pay up. I don't want to
send them that message. Too many people sending them that message
endorses their behavior and encourages more objectionable price
increases, service-cuts-without-corresponding-price-cuts, onerous
ToS-tossing, and so forth. How do you think we reached this juncture to
begin with, with technical support now meaning "you can have sections
of the faq read aloud to you in a thick accent over the phone, possibly
even for a fee", software that contains lots of gratuitous extra bugs
arising from it being made to try and enforce its own copyright,
disappearing services, more spam, and higher prices everywhere --
because too many people meekly tolerated the initial probings of the
big corps and ponied up the extra cash, and not enough people made lots
of noise about the way they were suddenly getting less while paying
more. Companies have, as a collective, learned that they can get away
with such tactics and pocket the extra earnings with impunity, led by
Microsoft and swiftly followed by ISPs, the recording industry, Corel,
Adobe, and Christ alone knows who else. Now it is time that we made
them unlearn it and start fairly dealing with their customers again. So
no, I will not meekly start paying more for the same level of service.
They are holding my (and others') nntp access for ransom, rather than
dealing fairly, and I will be damned if I will reward them for that
behavior with money -- whether the money goes to the same ISP or to
some other business. As far as I am concerned, they are all the same,
and money going to one of them is simply money going to Big Business.
And until they put the teeth back in the Sherman Act my attitude in
that regard will not change. When businesses are actually competing for
my dollars again, rather than colluding to extort more of them than
they could separately and then sharing it under the table, then I will
reopen this matter for reconsideration and possibly alter my own
strategy. (Which currently, when dealing with any organization that
asks for my money, is Stingy Tit for Tat.)

.

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