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Ice Cream Man wrote:

Maybe GE should pay me, because I was going to invent the incandescent Light Bulb

GE hardly deserves the flattery.

This is normal business for Walmart.  If they weren't boycotted before, what's new to cause it to happen now?

I smurfing hate Wal-Mart, those corporate asshats. I hope this deal does not work out.

If you have some free time, watch this. PBS Frontline: Is Wal-Mart good for America?.

thume wrote:

If you have some free time, watch this. PBS Frontline: Is Wal-Mart good for America?.

I was just about to post this. That was one of Frontline's better pieces. I'm so glad they post full shows online.

This is pretty much a rant by my definition.

I've been boycotting Wal-Mart for a couple of years now (ever since I first saw that Frontline report). Why stop now?

mtpalms wrote:

If it weren't WalMart, it would be called extortion.

They threaten to not sell movie distributors' product if the distributors try to sell movies through iTunes, then turn around and tell Apple they will stop threatening the distributors if they get a cut of Apple's movie profit (gross, I'm sure). Doesn't the Mafia operate something like this?

That sound about right to me

I'd love to boycott Wal-Mart, but then I'd have to drive 30 miles for, you know, socks 'n smurf.
Don't get me wrong, Wal-Mart is evil, but when you live out here in the sticks, sometimes you don't have a choice.

Look at it this way: What has Steve Jobs been very good at doing these past few years? Maybe this "thawing of relationships" is just what he needs to get his foot in the door.
10 years from now it may be, "Steve Jobs, CEO of Wal-Mart."!

I think they're bluffing. There's no way WalMart is going to stop selling DVDs. Their customers would go somewhere else.

Ice Cream Man wrote:

That's pretty much it, I think we should all boycott Wal-Mart.

The company that locks other vendors out of fairplay and has the market rigged technically so that I can't use purchased downloads from any other company on my iPod is being pushed around by Walmart? Ahhh poor babies... cry me a river.

Not to mention the fact that nearly nobody recognizes Wal-Mart as a provider of digital internet content.

I think the article said that Walmart is the biggest seller of iPods.

HackerJax wrote:

Ice Cream Man wrote:

That's pretty much it, I think we should all boycott Wal-Mart.

The company that locks other vendors out of fairplay and has the market rigged technically so that I can't use purchased downloads from any other company on my iPod is being pushed around by Walmart? Ahhh poor babies... cry me a river.

Not to mention the fact that nearly nobody recognizes Wal-Mart as a provider of digital internet content.

I think the article said that Walmart is the biggest seller of iPods.

Ok, Europe has been bugging the US to share our DRM technology also. Let's just hand it over. Along with all of our military encryption key technology too.

I think it is important to differentiate between hardware, and content here. An iPod is not content, it is merely the medium on which the media is played.

Has this country forgotten what capitalism really is. Not to mention, if I'm not mistaken. It was bill Gates who signed so many companies to exclusively distribute his OS, on their machines. Or did that bit of history get lost in the pages some where.

Capitalism; I invent something awesome, you invent something sucky. I get more customers, you eat dirt. That is how it works.

It wasn't fair to Tesla, that his patents were copied and used by the man who claimed to "invent radio". Or that his technology that makes possible the florescent light, was over run by the cheaper incandescent which has waisted heaps and heaps and heaps of our natural resources.

No it may not be "fair" to Whaaaaa-Mart. But you know what, THEY CAN EAT DIRT!!
Think of all the little guys they have run out of business. How many small quaint communities destroyed by there retail industrialism.  So many places that had character, now tooting the horn of Big Box Mart

And for those of you in question I abandon Big Box Mart shortly after I quit working there, 6 years ago. I mostly shop local places now, and Target.

Apple made a good product, provides content for it. And is successful.

Why don't all the printer companies let after market manufactures have the schematics to the printer cartridges. I mean heck they only made the medium, why not let everyone make the media.  It's the cartridge that ensures the revenue. NOT THE PRINTER

That's why Apple "mysteriously" dropped iPod prices at the announcement of the Zune, TO GET MORE OUT THERE. So more people will buy content.

Wal-Mart is scared they will loose business. And you don't see Dell whining that Apple should provide crappier customer service, just so Dell can com back up in the ratings.

Last edited by Ice Cream Man (2006-10-02 8:24 pm)

Actually, Apple uses the iTunes Store to get people to by iPods. They don't sell iPods to get people to by songs from the music store, because they make much more money on iPods. In the same way, they use OS X to sell Mac hardware. Apple is a hardware company.