Future Shop CHEATED me. About 3 weeks after buying my laptop in 2007, I realized that the device, claimed by the manufacturer to have 250 GB of hard disk, only had 233 GB. It was a frustrating experience – my family and I lined up for Boxing Day, since about 4:00 AM, only to be cheated in such an outrageously blatant way? No one said anything about the theft and I wasn’t alone – why do people act so blindly towards anything high-tech? Future Shop, Intel and Microsoft united to “conspire” against us, the consumers. They put up a great deception, a façade that made theft seem OK. Even though I was technologically illiterate, I could still read, . (I planned to release the story to CBC, titled the NANOdeception of The Century) Fortunately, before I announced my discovery to the world, my neighbour, saved me from what might have happened. It turns out that computers and us exist in different dimensions. The hard disks are not very smart; hence they only speaks in binary. 1 GB = 1,000,000,000 Byte. However, that’s not how things work in binary… For the manufacturer, a KB is pretty much 1024 Bytes. 250 GB, hence, equals 250,000,000,000 / 1024^3 = 232.82 GB. So… our hard disks are suckier than we think… Why make things so complicated? Why can’t everyone just agree on 1 language? Why don’t we communicate in the same dimension? The asymmetry of information is great nowadays – there are a few giants, like Intel, Samsung and Apple, who tower over us with their miraculous products. They make things happened, like magic, while not informing us about what the magic is. How was I supposed to know that 250 GB isn’t 250 GB in machine-speak? Or whether a flyer is referring to machine-speak or like us-consumers-who-are-powerless-speak? Did the manufacturers simply toss that number around to make it seem like a better deal? Or did these giants simply conclude that we can’t comprehend their superior logic? Note: They can either advertise a device with 233 GB or 250 GB. For those of you that are tech-savvy, a Byte isn’t a Byte… These corporations take pride in keeping the consumers in the dark. Most people know WHAT, but not HOW. This is a giant problem. Oh yea, what about those telephone customer services that basically redirect you to some place in India? (I usually just hang up in self-pity – they are not very helpful) If something breaks down, we are at the mercy of these customer service centers. Chances are, whatever they say we need, we buy. We do what we are told, because they know what they are doing. Truth be told, I think that these companies are probably working together to make sure that the average consumer has little potential of objecting to the tyrannical reign of their business. This is all done under the name – “we want to help people.” I mean, look, this is happening everywhere in our world. We have been taught to know A LOT about like ONE thing – a Ph.D. doesn’t mean anything in another closely related field. Hence, most people need to rely on others’ expertize. Real estate agents supposedly wanted to help us. Financial agencies supposedly wanted to help us. LOOK AT OUR ECONOMY. Lawyers supposedly want to help us. Pharmaceutical companies supposedly want to help us. Everyone supposedly wants the best for everyone else. For money, as much money as possible, of course! Why do we all speak in different languages? Why do schools graduate people who speak in codes that not everyone can understand? Why do we all live in different dimensions? How can we trust each other when we can’t even communicate? *I realize that I generalize a lot, but I do think that the asymmetry of information is a serious concern.* Please follow Monsternomics on Facebook: https://facebook/Monsternomics
Posted on: Mon, 24 Jun 2013 03:18:29 +0000
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