Yep! Burns me up, too - and definitely seems to be a trend. Big corporations, especially those that deal with things that last a long time (or used to), have figured out that they can generate a larger and more consistent cash flow if they control consumables or force users to subscribe to services they thought they'd paid for. Software companies were the first where I noticed it, but now that most hardware has software components in it, we may find ourselves hostage to many other similar situations, e.g. our cars, home appliances, etc. I'd think anti-trust laws would protect us, but it seems they haven't been enforced much in the past couple of decades - and I'm not very hopeful of that changing any time soon.  |
