The New York Times has finally realized that personal computers are disposable. Yep, just as with the VCR, toaster, microwave, DVD player, cd player, shoes, cellphones and now – PCs.
Well, it’s been that way for a while now. Maybe the New York Times just didn’t realize it? AOL has been offering a $300 PC for two years. Two years or providing consumers a full PC with a 17″ monitor and color inkjet printer. Making a one year comittment to AOL. (Search google for AOL $299 PC)
eMachine refurbs are a plenty under $500 for some of the fastest machines available on the market over at TigerDirect.com makes it easy to see how you can just toss out the box when the one you have starts to give you problems.
“I was spending time every week trying to keep the machine free of viruses and worms,” said Tucker, a vice president of Salesforce.com, a Web services firm based here. “I was losing the battle. It was cheaper and faster to go to the store and buy a low-end PC.”
People are seemingly never going to end the battle against spy-ware, shareware addons and other crap that gets into our PCs, changing our settings, homepages, search pages, toolbars and favorites – plus, secretly collecting data from our PC usage and web surfing habits.
Who isn’t violating my privacy recording what I’m doing. Don’t I need to OPT-IN somewhere? Can’t someone do something about this? It seems that even Microsoft has given in, changing their definition of Gator’s application in their Spyware client. Hey, it’s still spyware – or according to Redmond is it “downgraded” to non-spyware?
Hmmf. Many seem to be surrendering to the upswell of pc-borne ailments and viruses and just as busy in an upswell of downloading anti-spyware applications.
Can’t we just legitimize that it is COMPLETELY ILLEGAL to do crap to my computer without my consent? Let’s not draw straws. Read the whole story over at News.com.
UPDATE: I just found this site which is great – it’s a Dumpster Diving article and how even whole PCs are found!
Forgot to mention that alternative operating systems, like Linspire, are also shaving the cost down to $300 on a complete PC (see this link.)