Discussion on:

Soviet-era thinking clanks back into life in Western tech

Two points:

1) In the throwaway society that is the US these days, I'd suggest simply making a new model every three-four years is better than making zillions of the same antiquated model. But it's true that we (the US, again) replaces rather than fixes in many cases.

2) When legislation designed to protect everyone turns out to be expensive enough that it becomes a measurable barrier to entry into business and/or markets, then the larger companies will dominate, crush (in business or politically), or buy up those brave souls who fight the now regimented, legislated system. Not hard to predict at all.

This reminds me of the scene in "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" (1988) where Sting is taken away to be executed for "... singlehandedly destroying ... six enemy cannon ..."

The reason:
"This sort of behavior is demoralizing for the ordinary soldiers and citizens who are trying to lead normal, simple, unexceptional lives. I think things are difficult enough as it is without these emotional people rocking the boat. "

That sort of thing actually happened during WWI !!

It's been BT's business model for as long as I've been involved in telecoms. ISDN ? Yes we've heard of it ! You actually want it ? Oh go on then, but just wait until we've figured out how to cripple it enough that you can't do away with our vastly overpriced leased lines. Yes, we paid around 6k/year for a 64k leased line between two sites. Most of the time we could have made do with ISDN D channel signalling and bring up a B channel as required (I gather it was commonplace in Germany and other forward thinking places). No, not available from BT - they daren't have let that one out of the bag as it would have trashed their leased line business.

More recently, one of our customers at work has internet via a wireless service - put in as one of the earlier "get businesses connected" schemes where he pays for a "2M ADSL" but gets this business grade wireless. As it happens, he was the only customer on the particular segment at the base tower - and got near enough 4M symmetric for a few years. Last time I was there, he commented that it wasn't as fast, and yes, the ISP has now hard throttled him down to 2M.
It's still better than the alternatives, but only just.

Simon = I did my best to change all that during my time there, but culture and habit + vested interests could not be overcome. I suspect you have to start with a clean sheet and a new company/team to win. Peter

Soviets would have kept the high speed link for their aparatchiks, and give the foreigners the slow stuff. Whereas what happened here is someone realised they'd gifted someone with a better free service than the one they were trying to make money off. Faced with make paid for service better or cripple free service, they chose the low cost, maximise share holder value, cripple option...

So come again?