Remember when you got what you paid for?

So today I got lured into a Yahoo News link to some video. I can’t remember what the video was about, but golly whiskers, it sure seemed important at the time, so you could imagine my disappointment when instead of streaming video, I got a message saying that something was wrong with my browser configuration. I’m running Vista Ultimate on a 5 month old PC with 4 gigs of RAM.

Of course, the 30 second pre-roll ad played just fine, but the content itself, well, that must have been pretty hi-tech stuff.

This seems to be the theme this week. I tried to download a ringtone, from a company I work for even, and when the WAP push came along, it told me that my phone wasn’t compatible. I actually paid a significant premium for a phone that was extra-super compatible, to the point that the major carriers weren’t selling it in favour of its less-featured successor, but it’s just not compatible.

This reminds me of the earlier days of the internet and computing, when I would run Linux and whatnot not for the freedom, but because it was all I could afford, and I was willing to sacrifice some compatibility to get stuff done. Today I’m paying extra for the same level of service. You know, if I’m going to get screwed at the low and high ends, I think I’ll be a lot more comfortable in the cheap seats.