M$ never ceases to amaze regarding how low they'll go to make a dollar. A few years ago it was their infamous Linux patent racket and behid-the-scenes funding of SCO's UNIX lawsuit. Now they're loan sharking. I've also been reading recently about their botched attempt to limit the new hot code reloading feature of .Net 6 to Visual Studio as well as their proprietary debugger code which prevents .Net from ever going truly open source. Same old M$.
Microsoft pushes ahead with controversial ‘buy now, pay later’ feature for Edge
101–110 of 307 posts
Re: Microsoft pushes ahead with controversial ‘buy now, pay later’ feature for Edge
#102> It allows any purchase between $35 and $1,000 made through Microsoft Edge to be split into four payments over a six-week period. > While the service is being promoted as ‘interest-free’, some were quick to point out that all transactions are subject to a “$4 flat fee”. $4 in fees on $1000 over 6 weeks is an effective APR of around 4% - pretty good. $4 in fees on $35 over 6 weeks is an outrageous APR of around 123%.…
It is interesting to compare to using a credit card.
The net tells me that the average credit card in the US has an APR of around 16%. Credit cards typically charge no interest for a month if you pay your balance in full that month. If you don't pay in full they charge interest based on your average daily balance during the month and the length of the month.
If you were to pay with your credit card and then make 4 payments toward your credit card balance on the same schedule that you would have made Zip payments, I get that Zip beats the card if the purchase is over $487 and occurs at the start of your credit card billing cycle. It the purchase occurs in the middle of the cycle it needs to be over $811 for Zip to be cheaper. (This is assuming that in the month of the 4th payment you pay of the card balance completely).
Re: Microsoft pushes ahead with controversial ‘buy now, pay later’ feature for Edge
#103> It allows any purchase between $35 and $1,000 made through Microsoft Edge to be split into four payments over a six-week period. > While the service is being promoted as ‘interest-free’, some were quick to point out that all transactions are subject to a “$4 flat fee”. $4 in fees on $1000 over 6 weeks is an effective APR of around 4% - pretty good. $4 in fees on $35 over 6 weeks is an outrageous APR of around 123%.…
Now web browsers are gonna become credit cards attached to your browsing history... Great job guys! :| Ugh, who ever would have thought 2021 would have come to this.
This is M$ we're talking about. Are you really surprised?
Re: Microsoft pushes ahead with controversial ‘buy now, pay later’ feature for Edge
#104Microsoft finally made a browser which renders websites as expected, is up-to-date regarding security and features, and (most) people actually don't have the need to replace it with anything else. I will never understand why they NEED to ruin this. It's baffling.
I do understand. Look at Firefox: they are barely hanging on.
Re: Microsoft pushes ahead with controversial ‘buy now, pay later’ feature for Edge
#105Microsoft finally made a browser which renders websites as expected, is up-to-date regarding security and features, and (most) people actually don't have the need to replace it with anything else. I will never understand why they NEED to ruin this. It's baffling.
Because Microsoft's raison-d'être is to extract as much money as possible from computer users. No matter how much they try to not be evil, no matter how many overtures they make to developers, it won't change the fact that Microsoft is basically just a hostile entity out there to extract as much money as possible from the computing scene.
And to think they now own Github and NPM. The Borg is truly upon us.
Re: Microsoft pushes ahead with controversial ‘buy now, pay later’ feature for Edge
#106Make it hard for others to use other browsers, then push them in to getting in to buying things they cannot afford. Very unethical and I hope there are repercussions for all this horrible behavior.
Can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs, y'know? I'd like to believe that people will stop using Windows now, but I think at best they might just lose some market share over the next 5 years.
I, too, have been watching Succession
Re: Microsoft pushes ahead with controversial ‘buy now, pay later’ feature for Edge
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
The winning play for them is to make genuinely the best browser, gain market share, and then start their shenanigans. Like Google did
What shenanigans do you think Google is pulling? There's nothing equivalent in Chrome...
Google is an advertising company. That's what they make their money from. And they are the biggest internet advertising company.
Everything they do is aimed at gathering more data for more lucrative ads.
Re: Microsoft pushes ahead with controversial ‘buy now, pay later’ feature for Edge
#108Microsoft finally made a browser which renders websites as expected, is up-to-date regarding security and features, and (most) people actually don't have the need to replace it with anything else. I will never understand why they NEED to ruin this. It's baffling.
I do understand. Look at Firefox: they are barely hanging on.
Only because the Mozilla foundation spends their money doing all kinds of dumb things that no one wants.
Re: Microsoft pushes ahead with controversial ‘buy now, pay later’ feature for Edge
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because Microsoft's raison-d'être is to extract as much money as possible from computer users. No matter how much they try to not be evil, no matter how many overtures they make to developers, it won't change the fact that Microsoft is basically just a hostile entity out there to extract as much money as possible from the computing scene.
Because in the long run you make money best by providing customers valuable services and/or products. If you're screwing over your customers in any way, that is counterproductive to that goal.
Haven't the past past 10 years been a complete refutation of this belief? Money made by hype, fraud, market power abuse or regulatory arbitrage dwarfs profits made by providing value, no longer how long the time horizon. Especially since it's clear that the US establishment's policy is not to prosecute and punish white-collar crime
Re: Microsoft pushes ahead with controversial ‘buy now, pay later’ feature for Edge
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because in the long run you make money best by providing customers valuable services and/or products. If you're screwing over your customers in any way, that is counterproductive to that goal.
Maybe that's true, but these kind of actions are Microsoft's MO. It's how they grew, it's what they'll forever do. I almost thought they had changed when they seemingly shifted to be friendlier when they were trying to attract developers to Azure and embracing Linux and OSS, but obviously not. MS just can't not be evil. Kind of like Oracle.
M$ "embracing" Linux was like The Wicked Witch Of The West embracing Dorothy considering how soon it followed their evil Linux patent racket and funding of SCO's baseless UNIX lawsuit. Beware The Borg, all you who are too young to remember M$'s glory days.