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Gateway 2000's hilariously bad ads in the 90s (Part II)

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Re: Gateway 2000's hilariously bad ads in the 90s (Part II)

#81

Post by bonsai_spool »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #64
to11mtm wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's actually a mortgage company that does worse; They call it the 'People Promise', and it sounds like a bonus, but; 1. It's actually a loan. 2. If you leave or are terminated at any point for the period, you have to pay back the ENTIRE loan amount. 3. Because it's a loan, if you -do- survive employment through the term, guess what, you now have to pay tax on the 'forgiven loan'. 4. If you don't take it, you don'…

> They call it the 'People Promise', and it sounds like a bonus, but > Because it's a loan, if you -do- survive employment through the term, guess what, you now have to pay tax on the 'forgiven loan'. Did you have a point to make here? Do you think you don't have to pay income taxes on bonuses?

The point is that this bonus is effectively a condition of hiring that has strings attached

Re: Gateway 2000's hilariously bad ads in the 90s (Part II)

#82

Post by duxup »

ratana wrote: post #80

I didn't have a Gateway 2000, but my friend did, and it came with an amazing keyboard with programmable macros. I was able to get one of those and used it for a few years, and never understood why such a thing wasn't more common.

That was the Gateway AnyKey keyboard:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gateway_AnyKey

Re: Gateway 2000's hilariously bad ads in the 90s (Part II)

#83

Post by FireBeyond »

beering wrote: post #38
to11mtm wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's actually a mortgage company that does worse; They call it the 'People Promise', and it sounds like a bonus, but; 1. It's actually a loan. 2. If you leave or are terminated at any point for the period, you have to pay back the ENTIRE loan amount. 3. Because it's a loan, if you -do- survive employment through the term, guess what, you now have to pay tax on the 'forgiven loan'. 4. If you don't take it, you don'…

Number 3 sounds like nothing out of the ordinary? Any bonus you get from an employer, granted or otherwise, has to be taxed at some point. This just sounds like a weird signing bonus.

Yeah, at one point, an ex-employer gave me a relatively substantial loan (low-mid 5 digits). They were willing to give it to me interest-free, but the accountant said they had to charge me at least prime rate, otherwise that interest would have been taxable. Which was all fine by me, I was going through a divorce that tanked my credit (now ex let a car get repossessed that was in both our names), so no-one was giving me that kind of loan unsecured, let alone at prime rate.

Re: Gateway 2000's hilariously bad ads in the 90s (Part II)

#84

Post by FireBeyond »

rcxdude wrote: post #78
SoftTalker wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I've seen where I work the majority of "work" computers and laptops don't get returned if the employee separates for whatever reason. So I can see some companies wanting to make it a formal loan or have some means to recover the lost value if it isn't returned. My employer doesn't, because the residual value of a 2-3 year old laptop is not even worth anyone's time beyond making a few perfunctory requests to…

Eh, the requirement to return your work-provided laptop is about as strong, legally speaking, as a requirement to pay back the value of it when you leave. Perhaps even stronger (because a work laptop is never really even a loan to you). I would suggest your workplace is a bit of an outlier: most places I'm aware of make pretty sure the laptop is returned, even if only because of the risk of company information leakin…

Yeah, I've generally had to return laptops, unless the company itself is closing down (startups) or such (which I've been "fortunate" on, I once got to keep a nice iMac 27" and 27" Apple display, and then an M3 Max 96GB MBP). But usually monitors, other accessories are "you can keep those".

Re: Gateway 2000's hilariously bad ads in the 90s (Part II)

#85

Post by FireBeyond »

Theodores wrote: post #30
mrloopex wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s be clear: they were Lego-ing together parts from China. There were no mass produced PC components in the US by the 90s.

In the UK a typical Gateway 2000 desktop PC came with a Trinitron screen, made by Sony in South Wales. Their business model for the UK was the same tax scam as Apple, Dell and others. Everything was mail order, operating out of Dublin. Their products had quality multimedia toys (CD, speakers, decent screen, keyboard with extra programmable keys) combined with decent CPU/RAM/ROM/graphics for the price. I did support f…

> Their business model for the UK was the same tax scam as Apple, Dell and others. Everything was mail order, operating out of Dublin.

I think to this day Monster Cable (ugh) still operates a similar scam, where the US company licenses all their cable technology (also ugh) from Monster Cable Bermuda, which exists only in a small four story office building that is the legal HQ of 15,000+ companies.

Re: Gateway 2000's hilariously bad ads in the 90s (Part II)

#86

Post by cebert »

to11mtm wrote: post #15
addaon wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They would also give you a PC in agreement for continued employment for N years. Do you mean that in exchange for accepting a PC, he had to agree to a multiple-year enforced contract? Is the right to leave a company even a right that one can sign away in the US? Would people really do that for a few thousand dollars? That seems shockingly close to indentured servitude... "we'll pay two months of your rent up front,…

There's actually a mortgage company that does worse; They call it the 'People Promise', and it sounds like a bonus, but; 1. It's actually a loan. 2. If you leave or are terminated at any point for the period, you have to pay back the ENTIRE loan amount. 3. Because it's a loan, if you -do- survive employment through the term, guess what, you now have to pay tax on the 'forgiven loan'. 4. If you don't take it, you don'…

There’s a whole “pillar7” subreddit about United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM) if you’re interested in reading about their employment practices. They were forcing people into the office five days a week during peak COVID. It sounds like it’s a mess over there.

I personally know some lower income people who have been negatively impacted by the people promise.

Re: Gateway 2000's hilariously bad ads in the 90s (Part II)

#87

Post by rfarley04 »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #56
raldi wrote: post #14

“These are the worst ads I’ve ever seen.” “But you have seen them.”

Agreed. They are good ads if we're still discussing them. This is one of those critics that assumes the current times are the 'correct taste' and anything foreign to their taste is poorly done, even when it resulted in sales.

Author here, from another issue I sent about my definition of bad ads for this newsletter:

"tl;dr While I do exaggerate the “badness” of 80s tech ads to make things more fun, a nostalgic ad is not the same thing as an effective ad. What we see in advertising today is so depressing because it is often so bland AND more effective than its more playful predecessors."

They are fun to look at now. And soooo much more creative than marketing crap from today. But they're still 12-page long marketing gimmicks. I'd still take them over today's ads any day of the week, and that's why I spend dozens of hours every month tracking them down and learning their stories

https://buttondown.com/suchbadtechads/archive/bad-ads-define...

Re: Gateway 2000's hilariously bad ads in the 90s (Part II)

#88

Post by dosman33 »

saghm wrote: post #52
dosman33 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before I worked at TSS doing in-home PC repair, I did a short stint at Radio Shack and got the Compaq experience you described. I remember going to the introduction event for the Compaq roll-out into Radio Shack stores, I was sitting in a large hotel ballroom with like 100 other Radio Shack sales folks. The Compaq guy was asking questions from the audience and I was literally the only person there who could answer qu…

> I thhink he was way more broke than I realized. I grew up broke too, but I also had my eyes set on improving my situation. Was kind of a wake-up-moment that most people around me had minimal ambition about this. I feel like I'm missing something, because it's not clear at all why that would be your takeaway. Why would "not trusting a temporary employee that I don't usually work with to allocate my home computer bud…

It was the sadness in his voice and the look in his eyes that aligned with his words. I certainly experienced plenty of skepticism directed at me based on my age in my youth, this was not that.

Re: Gateway 2000's hilariously bad ads in the 90s (Part II)

#89

Post by Dylan16807 »

Sharlin wrote: post #49
mrloopex wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually yes China. Hong Kong specifically before the manufacturing boom moved to mainland. By the 90s Japan had lost its DRAM edge and was not making any PC peripherals en masse. TSMC was barely three years old in 1990.

Technically Hong Kong wasn't China back then.

Whether that nearly-over lease was enough to count or not, that lease ended partway through the time period we're talking about.
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