Many years ago a friend explained to me why Apple's Itunes music store was a huge success despite the fact that (at the time) there were many ways to acquire digital music for free. Apple realised, he explained, that for most people "Easy is better than free". The power of that concept has been proven by Apple and other companies over and over since then but my inner nerd has never been fully comfortable with it. The cost of "Easy" is rarely just financial, invariably you must also sacrifice some functionality as well. Most recently this point has been brought home to me once again through the world of TV providers (cable companies). First a bit of background: Ireland is a small country with only a small number of free to air TV channels so most people rely on additional cable, satellite, aerial or internet based services to extend the selection and in particular to access the large range of channels available in the much bigger neighbouring market in the UK
A blog about life, the universe and computer games. PC games mainly.