How can you afford it?

[how.about.another.slice]

After being away several months, I notice many of the same faces are still spending all day posting, despite their assurances that they work. One even spent a whole day waiting until 5.30 pm before posting just to prove she is employed!!! (only people unemployed or on benefits for years would assume the average work day is still from Nine-to-Five LOL!)

My question is, how do you afford to be here so much? Do you live off savings, an inheritance, divorce settlement, or do you simply chat from a library or a second hand notebook on limited internet usage?

To get a decent computer costs at least $2000 and without good internet connection, chatting on a forum isn't even worth it, so are these regulars going into debt over the boards? Would a bank even loan or credit them enough to supplement their activites and time usage here?

It's all very puzzling...

[freakiness]

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@monman12 wrote:

FN: "There is no way I would be able to use the old IBM DOS desktop or early windows model for what I use these days."

Actually FN DOS is only a family of operating systems, nothing to do specifically with an "old desktop", whilst XP was released with  Microsoft's default command interpreter "Command Com".
Knowing some DOS commands and booting XP into command prompt provides a useful and powerful tool to handle a HDD and manage  its contained file structure, especially when it is a "crashed" HDD.

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I know that and the point remains that the old system would not be suitable today.  I don't use XP either.

Why the obsession with using old systems that don't work with all today's applications?

I'm more than happy with my setup that is much more automated than the old days in which I could cook dinner in the time it took to upload 2 small photos and took 2 days to download a half hour video and played it on a 2inch window.

[freakiness]

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@crikey*mate wrote:

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freaky, I know you are passionate about the NBN, so please do not take this as me questioning it's viability. I really don't mind if we have it or not, atm, what I have works great, 12 months ago, what I could have was horrible, so I see both sides. My only real concern with the NBN is if we can afford it just yet, There are just so many other things we are trying to afford.

But when one entity has control over anything, there are opportunities for abuse. I don't like that idea at all.

We do need choice and we do need competition.

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We do get choice and we do get competition. The wholesale price is overseen by ACCC and the choice is in retail providers.

I can't understand why you think a govt owned monopoly will be more likely to increase prices than the privately owned monopoly we have now.

We are not trying to afford the NBN. It is a GBE who's capex funds will be repaid with interest.  It is not using money that would be used for anything else. Read the business cases if you want to understand the funding arrangements. It will be funded by govt bonds.  

Anyway it will probably get screwed over by Turnbull and demolished instead of providing the ubiquitous network intended.

[freakiness]

You know Monman, I remember people saying it was extreme for getting a 486 over a 386, for getting 2 Mb Ram over 1 and a new 20Gb hard.  It doesn't take long before they're not adequate.  If I can use 60-100Gb a month of data imagine how much a family of 6 could chomp through.

[not_an_eloi]

pre-election info, but read up 'ere:  http://nbnmyths.wordpress.com/how-are-we-paying-for-it/

[freakiness]

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@not_an_eloi wrote:

pre-election info, but read up 'ere:  http://nbnmyths.wordpress.com/how-are-we-paying-for-it/

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that site was started in 2010   🙂

there are a few contributers.

[not_an_eloi]

  you're concerned if we can afford it 'just yet'.

i'm concerned that turnbull and cohorts will stuff the nbn so badly that

australia will never be able to afford to recover from their wilful flamin' destruction. 

they'll put australia back a hundred years. 

[freakiness]

remember when a 56K modem was considered overkill?

[cezm]

agreed, am*3 ....

We are on ADSL1 - it continually drops out when it rains .... and sometimes when it doesn't. For the privilege we pay more than those on ADSL2. Telstra will not upgrade (or whatever it is they do) the exchange to ADSL2 because the NBN is on its way. We were looking forward to the NBN even though it would still be 8 years till it got here ... We are only 4kms from a major regional centre.

EDIT - ummm .... thought it would include the comment I was replying to ...

[*elizabeths-mum*]

Telstra still has a monopoly in some areas. We wanted to try Optus 2 years ago which had far better deals at the time and our address is in the Telstra grid so Optus couldn't take us. 

[clair.de.lune]

Is this thread about me? It's about me isn't it?

What other threads are about me? The chopper one? Donnashuggys threads?