Go sell that where you work! You and I are not the customer, business is the customer, and catering to enterprise is a whole 'nother ball game.

Yeah but try fucking around with Excel like that! Killed, golden goose, all that.

Bingo! But MS has managed all that brilliantly with Excel, mainly by NOT fucking with it.

My last job used Google for email, auth across multiple apps and office productivity. Worked fairly well, but HR and Accounting still needed Office.

I argued Active Directory would be as cheap or cheaper and far easier to manage, AND give us options we didn’t have. For some reason that whole place hated AD.The misconceptions were staggering, as if all they knew was from Windows Server 2003.

No one said Apple was a good company, just better for privacy.

Cook was giving a toddler a shiny for favoritism. That’s pathetic on Trump, not Tim.

Until I read the last sentence, I had no idea what you were talking about. You sound like you could whip up a media center PC easy enough. The machine I’m typing this on doubles as our media center. I have to take the mouse to the coffee table for a movie remote, but that’s the only hassle, and it isn’t a hassle for me.

I feel like the tech is already in place. What do you want that isn’t out there?

Been shouting at clouds forever. Capitalism ain’t the problem, it’s the unfettered mergers and near monopolies. When I was a kid, the FCC/FTC would have laughed. “No, you can’t control that much media.”

Now? Exactly as you said.

Both our TVs are Rokus, internet connected and I’ve been too lazy to configure the firewall. Only ads I see are on the home menu screen, and those are slightly annoying but unobtrusive.

Wife’s TV in the bedroom is only used for YT. (I think, that’s her thing.) Mine’s a second monitor for my PC to watched pirated content.

Where and how are people seeing ads?

"Here we have yet another case of a person dangerously confusing “how he thinks things ought to be” with “how things actually are.” Couple of quotes down: https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/41156208-deadly-force---understanding-your-right-to-self-defense Off topic, but interesting in itself.

No other options, must pay. :( The old timers had a word for how to fight such bullshit. Sounded like “shrike”? Something like that? Perhaps, “Buoy snot”? Anyway, they had some sort of spell by which they refused to give evil corporations their money. No idea how that worked, lost knowledge. (Queue 100 comments about Game Pass being a requirement for modern life, like electricity and water.)

Basic economics? Drop your low-value customers for high-value customers, make more money for less support and infrastructure (and accounting and HR and payroll and…) This is Business 101. Two things kick my ass: 1) No one seems to get this thing. 2) Everyone acts like these leaching services are a necessity.

Drop them and move on! Choose an entertainment ecosystem that fucked you? Lesson learned. Move on. Still want it? Steal what you can. I have no idea what’s on broadcast, cable or subscription TV. My home-rolled VPN is $6/mo., done.

Was gonna go for it but it’s been patched. :(

https://tenor.com/view/dave-chappelle-ihate-you-i-dont-even-know-you-i-hate-your-guts-hate-gif-5004602

The GOP dropped the “party of fiscal responsibility” over under George Bush. I haven’t heard them spout that bullshit in nearly 2 decades.

You got an economic system in your back pocket that doesn’t allow money to funnel upwards? Bring it out! It’s not capitalism you’re complaining about, it’s plutocracy we’re living under.

Adam Smith would be horrified at our monopolies. 1980s conservatives would be horrified! Yeah, the economy has always served the wealthy, but it wasn’t anything like today.

Nah, SCOTUS pushed back on Trump, first time around and this time as well. The administration had a solid run of Supreme Court wins for several months because they only brought cases they thought were slam dunks. Now that we’re getting into meaty subjects like birthright citizenship, the justices look to stand firm. Too little, too late, I know.

Among other reasons you’ve been given:

• The figured MN folks would be peaceable and lay down.
• No open carry of weapons.
• Didn’t think they’d show out in deep winter. (HAH!)

Could not have written my exact take as closely as yours.

Only thing I’d add is using it to screw around with personal photos. ChatGPT is cleaning up some 80s pics of my wife that were atrocious. I have rudimentary PhotoShop skills, but we’d never have these clean pics without AI. OTOH, I’d gladly drop that ability to reclaim all the negatives.

Very few laymen have noticed or give a shit about RAM prices. My young friend across the street and I are likely the only people on the block who know what RAM does, let alone are able to build a PC.

Business purchasing is where we might see some backlash soon. I’ve bought all the IT goods, hardware and software, for my last two companies, and I’d be screaming.

Boss: What the hell? Weren’t we getting these laptops for $1,200 last year?!

Skill in Excel is wholly different than skills in other Office products. But if Excel is on your resume, your better expand and show what real use you’ve made of it. Otherwise it comes off just as you said.