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FedEx is offering $5 off web orders to enable Flash

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Re: FedEx is offering $5 off web orders to enable Flash

#41

Post by HugoDaniel »

briandear wrote: post #36
HugoDaniel wrote: post #19

I sincerely hope that FedEx fails. I once bought the book "FreeBSD Kernel Internals" from informit. They sent it through FedEx. I payed the shipping costs in the informit site, as standard procedure. The book passed through customs fine, then FedEx hold it and told me they would not deliver the book unless i paid them 50EUR. This is their current and common practice here in Portugal. Fsck them.

If it makes you feel any better UPS in France does that to me all the time. It isn't the carriers -- it's the protectionist tax schemes of the EU. I once had a replacement wheel for a kid's stroller sent to me in France from the US. The wheel cost $20, and I had to pay $35 in import duties -- despite that part being unavailable anywhere outside of the US. Blame the government, not FedEx.

FedEx (and apparently UPS) do this without any type of warning, they are probably exploiting some loophole in the law to be able to do it. They can't expect happy reactions from their customers. I blame them for doing it without proper communication and also anyone that plays along with them without providing proper alternatives after knowing that they do this kind of stuff.

That is not the way business should be done. There should be a social responsibility part in every company. Extorting money goes against that.

Re: FedEx is offering $5 off web orders to enable Flash

#42

Post by problems »

archon wrote: post #25
greenpizza13 wrote: post #8

Ha. No thanks. If I go to use FedEx and flash is required I'm just going to use a different carrier. They are just delaying the inevitable. I bet there's some higher-ups at FedEx who still like flash and refuse to give it up.

> I bet there's some higher-ups at FedEx who still like flash and refuse to give it up. I suspect this is just a delaying action - a vain attempt to retain some of their web order volume - while they frantically write the replacement for their Flash component.

Yeah, it basically seems like an "oh shit, we're sorry our site is so ancient, here, have this coupon code so you save some money and don't jump ship instead".

Seems like a reasonable stopgap as long as they're working on fixing it.

Re: FedEx is offering $5 off web orders to enable Flash

#43

Post by jethro_tell »

greenpizza13 wrote: post #8

Ha. No thanks. If I go to use FedEx and flash is required I'm just going to use a different carrier. They are just delaying the inevitable. I bet there's some higher-ups at FedEx who still like flash and refuse to give it up.

Probably just didn't think it would be an issue and refused to fund the site migration. Which is strange, what have they been doing for mobile? Turns out, when people switch that shit off in default no one's going to turn it back on.

Re: FedEx is offering $5 off web orders to enable Flash

#44

Post by cookiecaper »

gigatexal wrote: post #2

Cheaper than re-engineering their enterprise web facing app I guess. Sad.

I'm sure they're just resentful that someone is "forcing them" to rewrite what they perceive to be a fully-functional product "for no reason". And to be fair, that sentiment is by no means rare; that's why there are still COBOL programmers, after all, and to a lesser extent, "enterprise" OS distributions.

Take into consideration that while the bare functionality of Flash has been "replaced" by HTML 5, there is nothing that really comes close to actually replacing Flash the IDE, especially not in a way that Flash developers find amenable. I've been working with a group to convert a Flash game to HTML 5, and, to put it lightly, it's a massive mess. There is currently no clear migration path. The market is really lacking there.

Even Adobe has given up on pretending like Flash is a solution for applications now; the IDE has been renamed "Animate".

In any case, FedEx is pitting itself against Google and the web community in a way I doubt they really understand. Whichever upper-mid-level manager green-lighted this is pretty naive.

Re: FedEx is offering $5 off web orders to enable Flash

#45

Post by sqeaky »

tehlike wrote: post #27
sqeaky wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally not worth the time or loss in trust. I don't use anything closed source on most of my machines (without proper sandingboxing). The main machine I have with closed source software gets only one credit card, with a low limit and that is for steam. I would be setting up VM for this. More likely I would just call and get what I need or switch carriers.

You know credit cards have 0 liability so it actually wouldnt matter if it had high limit? I never got the "i wont give my card" argument.

That is why I used one credit card on the machine.

I didn't use a second. I don't want to deal with the hassle. I don't want to have someone steal tiny amounts of money.

Perhaps, I have other things than financials that are sensitive on my machines.

Re: FedEx is offering $5 off web orders to enable Flash

#46

Post by HugoDaniel »

unit91 wrote: post #38
HugoDaniel wrote: post #19

I sincerely hope that FedEx fails. I once bought the book "FreeBSD Kernel Internals" from informit. They sent it through FedEx. I payed the shipping costs in the informit site, as standard procedure. The book passed through customs fine, then FedEx hold it and told me they would not deliver the book unless i paid them 50EUR. This is their current and common practice here in Portugal. Fsck them.

> I sincerely hope that FedEx fails... Yikes. You had a bad experience once with a company that's pretty reputable. Now you hope thousands of people lose their jobs and investors lose their money. This seems disproportionate, to say the least!

This is their current and common practice. When it happened I collected a few other stories from individuals who sent stuff with them. This is common.

Taking your argument one notch up: I hope and believe that this kind of coercion should be discouraged and that a company that insists on doing this must fail. Society cannot put value in these behaviors in any way (paying them 50EUR is giving them value). If you work at a company that mistreats their customers by extorting money from them then it would be better if you start looking for another job (better as in: better for us all). We have to work towards a system/society where the place we work should be a choice and not a last resort thing that our survival depends uppon (slavery). That is the base pillar of the free market ideology or any other ideology worthy of discussion (put in your favorite *ism here).

If you are an investor that is willingly and knowingly putting money in a company that behaves like that and expect to get your profit back because of these tactics then you should lose your money. We cannot work based on extortion or forceful positions.

These are just my opinions. They don't take away the fact that FedEx is acting improperly.

Re: FedEx is offering $5 off web orders to enable Flash

#47

Post by 24gttghh »

droidist2 wrote: post #12
24gttghh wrote: post #3

Has a company ever gone this route before?

Companies used to require IE a lot back in the late 90s and early 00s, if that counts.

I mean actually paying or giving discounts to users to install such a notorious piece of software, like Flash.

Re: FedEx is offering $5 off web orders to enable Flash

#49

Post by droidist2 »

alexanderson wrote: post #21
droidist2 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies used to require IE a lot back in the late 90s and early 00s, if that counts.

Definitely. My company has several vendors that require us to use IE and Silverlight to access their products. It's been a pain for us in IT to figure out how to support those vendor's products while still maintaining security.

Oh yeah, I forgot about Silverlight, cries

Re: FedEx is offering $5 off web orders to enable Flash

#50

Post by magic_beans »

jethro_tell wrote: post #43
greenpizza13 wrote: post #8

Ha. No thanks. If I go to use FedEx and flash is required I'm just going to use a different carrier. They are just delaying the inevitable. I bet there's some higher-ups at FedEx who still like flash and refuse to give it up.

Probably just didn't think it would be an issue and refused to fund the site migration. Which is strange, what have they been doing for mobile? Turns out, when people switch that shit off in default no one's going to turn it back on.

They're mobile site is despicable. UPS has a decent mobile site and very decent (even good) app. Brown shirts are winning.
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