A Decade Ago, Suicides Rocked a French Telecom Firm – Now Its Execs Stand Trial - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/2019/05/23/724476109/a-decade-ago-suicides-rocked-a-french-telecom-firm-now-its-execs-stand-trial <comment><USER2> The suicide spike at Orange / France Telecom took place from 2007 to 2009. I happened to work there fresh out of school from 2010 until 2012, just in the aftermath of the suicide wave, which we discussed a lot with colleagues at the time.

For this reason, I follow this trial with a particular interest and would like to clear a few things :

\- Upper management is _not_ directly accused of provoking the suicides. They are accused of a company-wide harassement policy aimed at pushing 22000 persons out without firing them (because they couldn't - them being public servants), by making them decide to leave on their own. The suicides are the most spectacular side-effect of this harassement policy but they are not the center of the trial.

\- France Telecom / Orange was a strange place at the time. It was divided between two generations : the older one signed up as public servants in a public service, and were deeply attached to France Telecom as a public service. A lot of them considered the recent privatization as a betrayal of their values. On top of that they had to go through a lot of technical evolutions, from phones lines to broadband to fiber. The younger generation were not public servants, were mostly fully on board with Orange being a private company and had skills more suited to current times. It was the older generation that was being pushed out.

\- Even given the explosive context, everybody in the trial tries to make it as dispassionate as possible. Accusation is pointing out that the plan was illegal, not immoral. Defense is arguing how Orange was facing an existential crisis at the time.

It will be interesting to know how it all plays out.

<comment><USER3> "The suicides are the most spectacular side-effect of this harassement policy"

The burden of proof required here is extreme.

<comment><USER4> If corporate policy is so bad it provokes a wave of suicides then there will be a lot of evidence available. That level of pressure is not subtle.

<comment><USER3> It's plain wrong to claim that some angry manager 'caused' someone to kill themselves.

Also, it's questionable if there was in fact a 'rash of suicides':

France has a rate of suicide of 12.9 / 100K / year. [1]

France Telecom has 95 000 employees In France alone. [2]

Here's the title of the Telegraph article: "Why have 24 France Telecom workers killed themselves in the past 19 months?" [3]

Well, it would be expected that about 20.5 FT employees will commit suicide every 19 months or so, sadly.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_S.A](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_S.A).

[3] [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechno...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/6259384/Why- have-24-France-Telecom-workers-killed-themselves-in-the-past-19-months.html)

<comment><USER4> As another commenter has mentioned; it is unlikely a sample of FTEs is going to reflect the general population for suicides so that isn't a very powerful argument.

But that isn't what jumps out at me - to me the real issue is that if management pressure is so bad it is provoking suicides then there will be lots of evidence for it. Presumably the reason people are talking about it in newspaper articles is because they have seen evidence and are asking questions.

The stats you have quoted suggest the number of suicides is already above average. That, combined with evidence of a problem, is very likely what has triggered the conversation at all.

I've seen some angry workers, but generally all they want is more pay or to work with better conditions going forward. I'm not sure how many of them would bother trying to get managers imprisoned without good cause. I'd guess it would be about as rare as management policies being bad enough to cause suicides. The media might have wiped out a whole heap of nuance - so it isn't worth getting worked up over the case - but if lawsuits are flying then it is more likely than not that something went very visibly wrong.

<comment><USER3> " it is unlikely a sample of FTEs is going to reflect the general population for suicides so that isn't a very powerful argument."

Actually, the data frames the argument quite well, moreover, there's nary any way one is going to get better sampling.

" if management pressure is so bad it is provoking suicides then there will be lots of evidence for it"

It's incredulous to suggest that 'management is provoking suicides'. It is completely absurd.

When, in modern history do you suggest that this has ever happened? Ever?

Wouldn't people _quit_ their jobs? Or get different jobs before resorting to 'death'?

We could all easily demonstrated working conditions elsewhere in the Western world where conditions are 'just as bad' \- ergo, the logic of 'they were provoked into suicide' makes no sense whatsoever.

And FYI my data demonstrated that the number of suicides is well within normalized range. An variation of 20% in one year is going to be normal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My fiancée got into one of most prestigious business schools in Paris many years ago, after getting through the brutally competitive application system (it might have been Institut supérieur du commerce de Paris, but I can't remember the name at the moment).

She ended up quitting and getting into the sciences instead, because she couldn't stand the class warfare techniques that the school taught. I think this is telling of a part of French society that isn't well-known outside of France.

This is an elite school, which teaches the brightest French youths (in terms of grades and competitive intellectual ability), and also the children of politicians, business leaders and powerful families.

The curriculum has your usual suspects of business administration topics, but also focuses on forming contacts in the elites and politics, plus explicit instruction in techniques for manipulating and dominating others. Examples being rhetoric, lying with a straight face, defending and justifying an indefensible or immoral case, or spreading rumors and damaging others' reputation.

France, in spite of all the beheadings, never really lost its aristocracy. There is a level of first-world corruption that's insane by central European standards. The politicial class consists exclusively of people who have gone to elite schools like the one I described, and never held a job, catering mostly to the requirements of big businesses.

As an external observer, it seems insane to me that the French are unable to vote in politicians that are not cronies to this system. But the news story is really no surprise, based on my third-hand knowledge of how French executives are trained.

Would love to hear some viewpoints from French or French-affiliated hackers on this.

<comment><USER3> " defending and justifying an indefensible or immoral case, or spreading rumors and damaging others' reputation." I actually doubt this, maybe there was something missed in the communication?

Also the 'aristocracy' is definitely gone. Entrance to the 'Grande Ecoles' is competitive, not based on nobility.

But yes, once you're in, you're 'set' and they do protect each other, it's similar to Oxbridge and Ivy League to some degree.

<comment><USER5> I don't think I missed anything in communication -- we're both reasonably articulate and know each other very well. Paraphrasing, there was an assignment that stretched over a few weeks, where students were supposed to try to start rumors about each other, and report back any such rumors that took root.

There were also assignments given to each student in turn, of the type "this is the position you are going to defend -- you have two hours to prepare, then you must front a debate in front of the class where you defend this viewpoint, regardless of whether you agree with it or not".

It doesn't require abnormally critical skills to imagine what sort of societal power structures such an education is meant to support.

<comment><USER3> I'm basically incredulous to the point where I simply don't believe this is true.

If this was an exercise in 'how to start false rumours to ruin someone' \- then it's not just 'questionable', it's shocking.

I can see this as part of an exercise to demonstrate how these things are 'powerful' \- but as a training exercise .... it's so abrupt I just don't believe it.

If this is part of the curriculum it should be posted somewhere, no?

Edit:

Here is a paper from Paris School of Economics [1] a 'Grande Ecole' where profs have basically studied how information flows through social networks.

I can easily see a professor teaching this course asking students to 'start some kind of rumouor' to see how the information propagates through social networks.

I don't for a second believe that this would be taught in a manner such that students are being 'instructed on how to use rumours to advance their careers' or some kind of nefarious thing.

I believe it's totally misrepresentative to indicate that schools would be doing such nefarious things, and I think that for whatever reason the OP has possibly misunderstood the nature of this kind of activity.

A quick glance at the paper reveals that this is just regular, kind of interesting social science.

[1] [https://halshs.archives- ouvertes.fr/halshs-00966234/document](https://halshs.archives- ouvertes.fr/halshs-00966234/document)

<comment><USER6> Once science has determined something, and the steps are reproducible and the papers are published, it's hard to stop it from being weaponized, even if it takes time.

For instance, some explosives that were developed for the mining industry are now used in military applications- similarly, there's nothing really stopping someone from weaponizing almost any scientific discovery.

<comment><USER3> These tactics were weaponized more than 2 000 years ago, we're just actually studying them now.

But the issue is not that they exist, it's that people are somehow thinking these Machiavellian tools are literally being taught as part of a curriculum as craft at France's highest institutions - this I find very hard to believe. I think that the kids are learning this in high school outside of class if anything.

<comment> loup-vaillant I'm French, and I find it pretty easy to believe. I even have another example: some elite schools teach _oenology_. Now what could possibly be the point of formally educating people on the finer details of wine making and tasting? It's simply how the aristocracy recognise themselves. There are other class recognition examples: for instance, rich kids tend to play tennis more than they play soccer.

I know third hand of someone who paid attention to his _watch_ and _smartphone_ to get a job (or a promotion, I don't recall). It was in finance. The idea is, if you belong to the right social class, you are allowed to go up. If they spot you for a commoner, you're not. Simple as that.

Think this is a stretch? I'v read an article (American article) about how someone was denied a job because of how she dressed. Oh she was dressed all right, neat and all, but she also had a dark skin (okay, she was black), and here is what the boss said once the interview was over: _" my, you don't wear a tank top under your shirt, you wear a silk shell!"_.

Such a little detail, but that was nevertheless a sign that this applicant was perhaps not as rich as she should have been.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why?

> Lombard wanted to cut 20% of staff — about 22,000 employees — to reduce debt > and make the company more competitive. But many workers retained the > protections they had enjoyed as civil servants.

What?

> Between 2008 and 2009, there were 19 suicides of employees, who left notes > blaming the company or who killed themselves at work. Twelve others > attempted suicide during that period.

How?

> Engineers were demoted to call center jobs. Employees say they were > micromanaged, isolated and assigned jobs without training. Families were > moved across the country multiple times in short periods of time.

What happens if they are found guilty?

> The defendants face up to a year in prison and fines of 15,000 euros (about > $16,750).

<comment><USER8> Did you understand from the article why the workers felt trapped in these jobs? Was the economy or sector extremely bad at the time?

<comment><USER9> It was a public service company, France Telecom, and employees were looking at their job as being civil servants in a way. Management decided to force many changes on employees in the hope they would resign. Many committed suicide or got sick, depressed etc...

<comment><USER8> Yes the article says all that. It doesn't say what is was that trapped them in these jobs though. How did it get so bad? Why did people kill themselves rather than resign?

<comment><USER10> You would never resign. Those jobs are for life and have benefits and pensions.

It's like a startup who offers high stock options vested over a period for early employees. They grow too quickly and try to push the early employees out without triggering a clause that allows them to take back the options if they quit. They try to place them in jobs they are over qualified or not suited for.

Would you quit and leave money on the table.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I haven't worked at Orange / FT but I think I wouldn't be wrong emphasising how strongly top-down corporate structures in France can be, as opposed to the US.

Put simply, your boss is "expected" to know more than you, you're not really supposed to question that. Easy to see how that can degenerate when going through such a change.

<comment><USER12> This was a public company (or some sort of weird in between, in this case). This matches my experience with my local public companies - contrary to private corporate environment which is definitely not good, but much preferable.

<comment><USER8> Not sure what you're saying - do you think public companies aren't corporations?

<comment><USER13> I believe the above poster meant "public service" as mentioned by the top- level comment, or "government-owned."

Edit: to be more clear, as in contrary to "private, corporate" mentioned above.

Hence why one refers to work in the private sector, which could mean a privately-owned or publicly-traded company, but not something government- owned/operated.

<comment><USER8> But public services and government owned are also corporations. Corporation doesn't mean 'for-profit public company'. It just means a group with a legal identity.

For example British Broadcasting Corporation.

<comment><USER12> For example in my country corporations are strictly for profit. It is also not just a "corporation", but a "business corporation" (there is no "corporation" by itself). Public companies are either publicly traded private companies and the state holds stock, or "publicly-owned enterprise" or another special category.

The point was that I think there is value in distinguishing public companies and private companies because it's completely different from employee's and career viewpoint.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> 1\. Not every action to increase the share price is justified.

2\. It's not an amorphous corporation that does wrong, it's particular people.

This should happen more often.

<comment><USER15> It's not just share prices. Telecom competition in France is next level.

I'm on holiday in France. SIM card was mailed to me for free. Activated an unlimited call/SMS and 4gb data for 10 EUR, or about US$12, and that includes their sales taxes.

And this isn't the oft-mentioned Free, just a random MVNO that mainly targets immigrants.

(Ok, it actually cost me 15 EUR because bloody iMessage sent a short code SMS to send tell Apple HQ what my new number is and ate some credit before I could sign up for the plan)

<comment><USER16> Ugh, I wish Canada had anywhere near these prices. It's about $40+ for 4GB of data and unlimited text but that's with a more limited coverage area. For national carriers it's $10-$15 more per month.

<comment><USER15> The French can get 100gb for less than that, and that includes 25gb of roaming, including to Canada.

I would have signed up with that company, but I didn't want to have to go to a boutique to signup ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've met many people that romanticise the role of executives as those burdening an incredible responsibility and therefore are compensated as such.

But this is one of the first times where I see there's some potential consequence to negative or destruction actions conducted.

<comment><USER5> Well, they made a lot of money by reducing the personnel costs in spite of the law making it very difficult to do so. So they definitely earned their salaries. The system works for optimizing profit under the contraints that exists. Notably, there are no moral constraints defined, and the morality of these actions are not a subject in this trial.

I think this is a sad state of affairs. It could work if the law perfectly reflected the ethics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Text only article:

[https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=724476109](https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=724476109)

</comment><comment><USER18> I worked at France Telecom/Orange from 2004 to 2017. Let me give a bit more context to the situation.

1) as mentioned in the article and comments elsewhere, the majority of employees in FT at that time were civil servants. This meant (as per the privatization deal that was defined by the French govt at the time) that they could not be fired. Ever.

2) the population was pretty old (the average employee age when I joined in 2004 was 48 years old). A _lot_ of people were hired in 1976-1980 by the then-"ministry of posts and telegraphs" to bring copper to every home in France. Those linemen and women were around 50 in 2004. Needless to say, every home in France had long since been plugged to the telephone network so their original work no longer existed. It's not fun being a 50 year-old civil servant whose skill set is obsolete and no-linger needed.

3) FT was in pretty bad financial shape after purchasing Orange at the height of the dot-com bubble. I remember endless cost-reduction plans at that time, initiated by Lombard's predecessor (Thierry Breton, who is now C.E.O. of Atos). As an example, the 2003-2005 objective was 15B€ in savings, IIRC.

4) Competition in the French telco space was already fierce at that time. FT, as the incumbent, was under obligation to provide its infrastructures and bulk service at cost+ to all the newcomers. Suddenly it could no longer charge what it pleased, and had to learn about marketing and sales and customer service. At the same time it also had to become a competitive internet provider and mobile operator.

5) Of course the obvious answer was to transition the historic workforce to new jobs required by the change in context and technology: telemarketing, customer service, IT infrastructure (my first job was web developer, and the ops team for our production infrastructure was party made up of ex-linemen. Needless to say, not all of them were comfortable with system administration, and I spent a lot of hours on the phone with them spelling out bash commands). Besides the skills gap, it's also a very large mindset shift to go from proudly contributing to the modernization and wellbeing of your country, to trying to upsell your customers on a faster Internet offer. (Think going from Bell in its glory days to current-day Comcast)

6) for a very long time, FT's top leadership (and I mean like the top 4-5 management layers, including all the excom and the CEO - basically anyone at VP level or above) came almost exclusively from a small group of engineers, the "Corps des Télécoms". These people are extremely bright but not always gifted on the emotional intelligence scale. And they're very loyal to the company. Plus, there was a huge amount of groupthink — they basically all reason the same way. This only started to change with Lombard's successor, Stéphane Richard. I mean, he's also from the Grandes École elite circle, but he went to a business school rather than an engineering one, so, you know. (/s)

Now, I absolutely do NOT condone what happened in FT at that time. But its management had to deal with massive debt, eroding revenues and margins, intense competition, and a large, ageing workforce who needed to be reskilled and had trouble transitioning from public service to competitive market. And who could not be let go.

It was a pretty shitty context, and arguably a textbook example that too much worker protection can actually be a bad thing for the workers themselves. I mean, if a mass layoff (with healthy compensation packages and re-training and so forth) had been possible, FT's management would most definitely have gone for it, rather than bullying people until they left of their own accord (or took their own life).

<comment><USER19> > 6) for a very long time, FT's top leadership (and I mean like the top 4-5 > management layers, including all the excom and the CEO - basically anyone at > VP level or above) came almost exclusively from a small group of engineers, > the "Corps des Télécoms"

There will be plenty to write about the incredible damage done to France by polytechnicians in the last fifty years.

I used to work for another state owned company and they were still catapulting freshly graduated polytechnician to important management position when I left a couple years ago. It was beyond funny because all the good elements who had already proved they were good at the actual job were getting deprived of promotion and just weren't listened to when it came time to take decision. They then either became jaded and stopped contributing or just left.

Top management (themselves former polytechnicians) would keep communicating about how the rank and file was so ineffective and expensive while all their improvement plans kept failing.

Meanwhile, Polytechnique keeps using its clout to sabotage any effort to reform the French higher education system.

<comment><USER20> Here in the US, we sent most of those people to the RAND corporation and outsourced "national security" to them.

We managed to live through it. 8-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Not defending the horrible pressure techniques, but how was a company which had now lost its protected market and facing competition for the first time while unable to let go employees supposed to be competitive and make a profit?

<comment><USER22> Normally by getting a subsidy to not fire people. This is what happens when the state heavily limits firing and companies go under because of it.

<comment><USER21> Was it the case here?

<comment><USER22> Doesn't look like it, but this kind of situation is known in argentina where it's unconstitutional to fire a public employee. Voluntary retirements are somewhat effective, but also expensive which is usually the crisis that pushes states to privatize.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Disclaimer : I don't agree with harassment methods used in France (more below).

France Telecom's bit :

Please note that the numbers of suicides at France Telecom was not even statistically so high :

[https://www.atlantico.fr/decryptage/85841/suicides-a- france-...](https://www.atlantico.fr/decryptage/85841/suicides-a-france- telecom--realite-des-statistiques-contre-force-de-l-emotion) (yeah google translate)

> Analysons en effet avec objectivité les chiffres concernant ce sujet grave. > Le nombre annuel de suicides parmi les employés du groupe France Telecom sur > le territoire français a été de 28 en 2000, 23 en 2001, 23 en 2002, 22 en > 2003, 13 en 2008, 19 en 2009, 25 en 2010.

> le « taux de suicide théorique » atteint alors près de 16,9 pour 100 000. > Ainsi, le taux de suicide constaté chez France Télécom à 19 pour 100 000

Taking into account the age, male/female repartition and the industry average, these are the 2 numbers : 17/100000 vs 19/100000\. You can check other countries suicides rates for these population to notice it's not abnormal - people got sick.

So what has happened : some people squarely laid the blame on the employer for their suicide in notes or letters (one such letter being written 2 years before the act - 2 years to react). The cases were hugely publicized.

I am pretty sure work(place) issues are a major cause of suicide, being the bread winning activity & so consuming so many hours and human interaction. Lack of work is a bigger factor too when you look at suicide frequency between active / inactive adults.

Hope this give a more open view than "bad management - no donut".

France bit :

It was really hard to fire people in France. The employee needs to messed up pretty big. It's next to impossible to fire public servants. The absolute opposite is the USA, where managers can fire their subordinates almost instantly (which brings in a bigger lot of issues and abuse).

So how do a team get rid of someone screwing up, not working, not team- playing, even actively hindering the team ? You don't. At best, you can put this employee to a new team or assign it a useless project (or more exactly, a project that the company accepts will never get finished). If the under performing employee does not want to be trained for new jobs, no consequences for him/her. Public service in France is ridden with such people, and government is paying twice for their work : once in their salary, once in the salary of someone actually doing it or a private contractor. I have work with&for such people and it's horrible.

So French management have these horrible & convoluted ways to make people leave the company. Giving them useless assignments, always poor performances reviews, etc.

French employees are very very well protected (thanks to decades of unions fighting) and it's much much better to be employed by French corporations than USA or British ones.

Nowadays, we might have reached a point where the downsides of this protection on economic performance are doubled by necessary hypocrisy in management. The social contract "work for the company, get paid for your work" is not holding. You can get paid without working. And you can work without getting paid enough (but I dare say it's the rarer of both in France).

It's changing under Macron's reforms which disgruntled privileged workers and which worried unprivileged ones. Now, there is a upper bound cost for firing someone & companies can plan on it. Remember, when fired, we got unemployment benefits + company's compensation. You also got the state's benefits when both you and the company agrees on you leaving the company.

Americans have no idea how amazing our social welfare is. And Frenches have no idea either.

</comment><comment><USER24> "Employees ... can receive significant severance pay, which provides a financial cushion while they look for a new job."

Imagine that. Laws that help people.

</comment><comment><USER25> Ah privatization. The success story that knows no end.

<comment><USER26> Like when they privatized energy because "competition will lower prices". In France, since the "opening to competition", electricity prices went up 44 percent. What's not to love?

<comment><USER27> So, in the last 12 years, electricity went up 44% (or 3% per year)? That does not seem extraordinary to me.

<comment><USER26> That's much higher than the inflation rate (which never was over 2% and often around 0).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> "Defense is arguing how Orange was facing an existential crisis at the time."

This sounds like something out of a bad movie. Corporations are people, too!

<comment><USER29> Could you please stop creating accounts for every comment you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

HN is a community. Users needn't use their real name, but should have some identity for others to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. There are legit uses for throwaways, just not routinely.

Lots more explanation: [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20community%20identity...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20community%20identity&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> The unanticipated downside of a policy of nobody can be fired.

<comment><USER31> Presumably they meant made redundant - I suspect you could be fired for cause.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is there a front page ranking bug? - <AUTHOR>

An item I submitted earlier suddenly dropped from #1 to #35. At the time, the item was 2 hours old with 62 points.
Is there some reason for this? It's a shame, as there were some interesting discussions that could have taken off.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1515997 <comment><USER2> I think you're on to something here, there are many articles on the homepage that score considerably lower than yours both just the points on the article _and_ taking in to account the comments. For instance there is #29, the crocodoc link, 37 points in 7 hours with 5 comments (yours has 8 comments). The 'ask' page is messed up too, it contains a duplicate (#27 and #28 are both 'what were your naivetés in your twenties).

</comment><comment><USER3> I believe comments are included in the ranking and 8 comments in 3 hours is pretty poor.</comment>


Tutanota, an Open Source Encrypted Gmail Alternative, Heads Out of Beta - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/18/tutanota-exits-beta/

<comment><USER2> They got me hooked cause they use DANE. Seriously, wake up, email providers, the Internet is broken, start doing SOMETHING! IMO: All providers should use DANE. Period.</comment>


Challenge HN: Block YouTube, Facebook, Google, Flash, etc for a day - <AUTHOR>

Recently I have been working to minimize distractions and increase motivation through a number of steps. One step I took was to block a number of domains Sunday through Friday. Www.youtube.com was one of said domains and doing so opened my eyes to just how pervasive YouTube embeds are on internet.
I challenge HN readers to block one or more domains for 24 hours. You will quickly notice just how often the blocked tendrils will leave blank/broken areas in sites.
A few good domains to block are www.facebook.com, www.youtube.com, twitter.com, or even just flash completely. <comment><USER2> Nice idea, maybe we could make a list of more domains to block:

Your ideas: * facbook.com * twitter.com * youtube.com

Mine: * stackexchange.com (yes!) * amazon.com (am I the only one using this so often?) * nytimes.com

It really seems like a nice idea to see how much we got used to these things when only a few years ago we didn't even knew we might need it :D

<comment><USER3> *.ycombinator.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think I could block all those in the title no problem except for Google. Google is too handy for searching for docs, methods and the like.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'd like to take up this challenge but the nature of my work prohibits me from doing so. Maybe on the weekend.

</comment><comment><USER6> Facebook, Youtube, Gmail (I don't get any important emails on weekends.), Reddit

</comment><comment><USER7> I'll admit HN is where I kill a lot of my time online, right after blogs...</comment>


Georgia Loses Legal Code Copyright Clash at Supreme Court - <AUTHOR> https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/georgia-loses-legal-code-copyright-clash-at-supreme-court <comment><AUTHOR> Not only is the law un-copyright-able, but neither are the annotations because it is the legislature that produces them (even though they're distributed by a private company):

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_v._Public.Resource.Org...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_v._Public.Resource.Org,_Inc).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> See also:

* [https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200427/11531544387/supre...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200427/11531544387/supreme-court-says-georgias-official-code-is-public-domain-including-annotations.shtml)

</comment><comment><USER2> front page: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22999096](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22999096)</comment>


Apple reportedly to release US$799 MacBook Air in 3Q12 - <AUTHOR> http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20120507PD214.html <comment><USER2> I don't buy it, and this article doesn't really make a strong case for it either. If the MB Air is a strong seller (and by all accounts it is), what sense does it make for Apple to drop the price down $200 to "compete" in a segment where it is already dominating? Clearly other "ultrabook" makers are already having a hard time competing at even the $999 price point, so there's no need for Apple to eat into its (presumably healthy) profit margins for the MB Air. With that said, I wouldn't mind if this was true, I would have a hard time turning it down at that price. The only way I could see this happening is if Apple takes a similar approach as it does with iPhones (and now iPads), where they keep the last gen hardware on the market at a reduced price when they update the lineup. But still...a $200 price drop seems unrealistic.

<comment><USER3> Digitimes is completely worthless as a source of info on Apple. (They're right sometimes insofar as a stopped watch is right twice a day.)

That said:

1\. Apple is pointedly not afraid of cannibalizing its own markets.

2\. Apple is pointedly thinking in terms of "the Mac should respond to the iPad as a competitor" and this basically puts the iPad + keyboard case directly in competition with the Macbook Air (expect the SSD capacity of the Air to be reduced or the iPad to increase -- no way a 64GB Air sells for the same price as a 64GB iPad).

3\. Now that the Mac is decidedly not central to Apple's revenues, expect Apple to rethink its Mac pricing in (to competitors) scary ways. Apple can afford to license its OS to third parties, and/or replace the Mac Pro with a dongle-based OS X license (buy whatever beastly workstation you want, and install Mac OS X Workstation Edition on it).

4\. Apple really has no-one to compete with but itself at this point. Its competitors are a joke.

<comment><USER4> I would add another point to that. Until a few years ago Apple built relatively expensive products and tried to make them good enough that buyers would want them enough to pay more. With Macs and to some extent with iPods that let Apple collect a nice big share of the market's profits, but not much of the marketshare.

Now, they've learned to make products price competitive without sacrificing quality or much of their profits. iPhones and iPads are not a more expensive option. They stay well away from the low end, but they are not expensive relative to the competing products especially those with similar specs.

Thats a whole other kind of strategy ('penetration' they called it at Uni) and maybe they're bringing it to the mac.

<comment><USER5> iPhones clearly are a more expensive option. It's just that in some markets the cost difference is hidden from the final customers, with the operator eating the difference. An unlocked 3GS (three years old!) costs about as much as an unlocked Galaxy Nexus.

Now, clearly some people place enough value on iOS that they're willing to pay the comparatively expensive prices (or move to another carrier that subsidizes the iPhone sufficiently). Good for them. And good for Apple that they're able to sell phones at absolutely staggering margins without anyone grumbling about the cost. But let's not pretend they're competing on price.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I assume for laptops, unlike iPads, it doesn't make sense to just keep selling the late-2011 MBA11 for a new $799 price point once the expected 2012 MBAs ship (presumably at the current price points).

Unless there are parts shortages, bumping the CPU to a newer one probably raise costs -- smaller process should eventually make the same number of computrons cheaper from a low spec new chip than a mid-spec older chip.

Not upgrading to better (retina?) screen (although 1440x900 on the MBA13 is pretty close, especially when used at arm's length), keeping RAM at 4GB, and maybe cost savings with older/slower integrated graphics...maybe that could let you have lower costs and price discrimination.

Refurbs already are -$100 to -$200; I don't know what availability there is on laptop refurbs vs. iPad refurbs.

</comment><comment><USER7> I am trying to think of the last time digitimes got a rumor correct. They have an exceedingly poor track record.

It does seem natural that a portable from Apple will hit the $799 price range to capture the college freshman crowd. Portables and not tablets are still a requirement at many schools.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm still wondering if there's a Macbook Air with a retina display in the works.

<comment><USER9> I really don't think so. Imagine every app with custom images / icons would need an update and this is way harder than updating iOS apps. The App Store is pretty "new" business and it is really fast but on the Mac it is kind of different. These things take longer.

Imagine Microsoft would need to release a version with retina graphics. This would take ages instead of weeks!

Another point is that it would cause fragmentation in the whole Mac / MacBook ecosystem.

I really don't think that this will happen in the next time!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Well, with iCloud in place Apple could start weaning users off massive local storage, reducing significant hardware costs. What with the biggest reason for local storage being one's iTunes library, and Match alleviating the practical need for storing _all_ that music/video on expensive spacious & speedy storage, why not plan for OS X & iTunes to ease offloading content (most of which is little used) and relieve the need for most of the Air's flash memory?

<comment><USER2> I'd hardly call the 64 GB in the $999 model "massive". I still know a lot of people who won't make the switch to an Air due to the lack of an optical drive, and reducing the already small hard disk capacity would reduce the attractiveness of the Air to those folks even further. Also, I don't think iCloud and iTunes Match are good enough (yet) to convince people that the don't really need a hard drive anymore.

<comment><USER11> Personally I am waiting for them to put floppies back in laptops. Seriously, Air will never get a built in optical drive and you either accept that and use the USB drive once a year when you need it or you just go and buy a different laptop, but for everyone else they are picking up the air in massive numbers and it is clearly the direction laptops are heading.

I have a macbook pro that came with a built in optical drive, but I still spent the extra money (and time) to remove it and replace it with a second drive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The Mac Pro replacement, the iMac Pro should see the light of day soon, with hot-swappable disks at the left and right sides, thunderbolt (obviously) including simple multi-screen support, touchability where required and multiple gpu support.

</comment><comment><USER13> I really hope this happens because I've been wanting to switch to a Macbook Air for a while now. Anyone interested in trading a late 2009 (I think, might be 2010) 13" Macbook Pro for a Macbook Air? :)

<comment><USER14> Why do you want to switch to a MacBook Air?

<comment><USER15> I just switched from a MB to a MBA.

My older macbook was starting to show it's age and I really wanted to switch to a SSD. My MB was already a 13", so the size wasn't an issue.

I ended up picking up a refurb for $1,099.</comment></comment></comment>