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The reason anything costs the purchaser what it does has almost nothing to do with how much it costs to produce or support.
As a business, you charge what the market will bear, not what it costs you + markup.[1] Microsoft has presumably done the research and found that by raising the price of certificates by 200% produces more income than by raising it by 5% (or whatever inflation is).
If you are selling widgets that cost $1 to produce, but the market wants to pay $100 for it, why on earth would you sell it for $1.25?
[1] I'm an independent contractor and consultant, and I never give an hourly rate. I prefer to give fix-fee quotes because then I can charge what I think the client is willing to pay. If what they are willing to pay is too little, then it's better that I don't take the job. If the problem that they want me to solve is worth $10k to them, they don't feel bitter if I solve it in a day.
IOW, I charge what the market will bear. It's also why, even as an ex Staff Engineer at a FAANG, I don't do work for tech companies - they say "we need a Go programmer for two weeks, and this is what Go programmers make, so that is what we are prepared to pay". A non-tech company doesn't even know what a Go programmer is, but they say "We want a system to do $FOO. How much?".
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Our state (Germany) emits ID cards with chips to uniquely verify my identity with readers connected to the PC.
Could be easy to establish a code signature instance based on these personal identifications (Only if our country wants digital progress  )? I'm sure other at least european countries have similar mechanisms ...
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Here's a radical idea: somebody thought it would be a good idea to monetize it. Someone won't like me to say this, but in my opinion, it's a scam, and the whole certificate structure is just so-much nonsense that has zero-utility as it essentially does nothing except to add a placebo effect of software safety.
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Story as old as government maybe? Make something required by law, hard to compete in because of regulation/approval, and then jack the price up.
It's basically how we ended up with insane insulin prices.
They'll literally kill people to make a bit more money. Inconveniencing a business or individual for some hokey false sense of security? That's kiddie stuff.
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It's the work they do to verify your (enterprise) identity. That's what is meant by EV ("Enterprise Validation") certs.
As opposed to DV ("Domain Validation") certs, which are freely available and commonly used for SSL/TLS on the web.
I really wish Windows would support DV certs, for code-signing. I get that it's not as strong, but it seems like 90% of games apps and tools out there don't have any signing at all.. surely DV signing would be better than nothing. :/
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Probably includes insurance to cover some amount of damage made.
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I just bought a new laptop to replace one that I've had for much too long. I was surprised to find that it not only has no CD/DVD device installed, it also lacks any Ethernet port! It never even occurred to me to look for either in the list of features before buying it; these are ubiquitous parts of any off the shelf computer! Apparently, not anymore. It seems that we are being driven to rely on wireless connectivity rather than anything physically secure! I'm hating this...
Will Rogers never met me.
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I assume it has a USB-C port (or two, one for power, one for communication). My laptop, bought about 3 years ago, it has one USB-C port that I use for a generic hub that houses my multiple HDMI video ports, my Ethernet port, multiple USB ports, audio in/out ports, etc.
I certainly see the utility and versatility of tying the peripherals to a USB-C port, but I also see the revenue stream advantage of moving ports off the laptop onto a separate hub.
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Oh great; I'm even more out of touch than I already knew! It came with 2x A-type, and 1x C-type USB ports, but I have no idea how you're using that to get all those other functions! What new widgets do I need now?
Will Rogers never met me.
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I stumbled upon the same problem when I bought my laptop a couple of years ago.
I bought this USB cd/dvd reader/writer only $19[^].
It has USB A connector but there is one for a bit more that has both A & C.
the nice thing is that I share it with other family members who only need it periodically also.
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Here's the quick rundown...
Lightening = Mac onry, EU no likey
USB A = sucks
USB B = sucks
USB C = used for data but screw why it, why not video too?
Thunderbolt = used for everything, even toasters... ripped of USB-C's fashion sense
HDMI = used for video and audio... unless you're a hacker with mad skillz
DisplayPort = used for video and audio, supports compression and probably AI too
Mini DisplayPort = looks a lot like Thunderbolt to me
3.5 audio jack = what's that again?
Jeremy Falcon
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I bought a compatible USB-C hub with power. Actually have two because I have had one fail before.
I plug all of the following into the hub
- Internet. There is a inline connector for that.
- usb keyboard (two plugs since mouse goes in via keyboard.)
- usb Headset.
- Sometimes a usb camera
Computer itself
- hub
- Two monitors
- External hard drive
- power (of course)
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Inbuilt CD/DVD drives are long gone. So much that MP3 songs/lectures are now sold on USB drives, and not on CDs/DVDs.
I use an external CD drive to read and play my collection of CDs / DVDs. Some of my CD/DVD content is backed up onto my 2TB external hard disk.
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No Ethernet port comes as a bit of a surprise, but it's been a long time I've seen a laptop come with a CD/DVD drive.
I still have a crapload of them in various drawers and still hooked up to other systems, so I'm not terribly worried...especially since I took the time, years ago, to rip pretty much all of the software I have that came on CD/DVD to ISOs.
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dandy72 wrote: No Ethernet port comes as a bit of a surprise
Smartphones never had them. I believe that few, if any, tablets ever had them. Removing them from laptops is the natural next step.
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trønderen wrote: Smartphones never had them.
Given that smartphones, by design, have wireless connectivity built-in, that's no surprise.
trønderen wrote: I believe that few, if any, tablets ever had them
You can always hook up a tablet to a dock that has one.
trønderen wrote: Removing them from laptops is the natural next step.
Which makes total sense. But given I'd still much rather have a cable (for reliability reasons), I don't think I'm ready yet to buy a laptop without an Ethernet port.
But then, I hate spending money on laptops, and I've only ever outright purchased one exactly once throughout my career. If a donated freebie doesn't come with one, I won't complain...it just wouldn't be my first choice.
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Take a look at Framework laptops.
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Why, you're selling them?
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Many moons ago, to help a friend out with a problem, I had to attach an old peripheral to my PC. My problem was that I couldn't find the COM port for plugging it in. I searched everywhere, but with no success. The absence of COM ports may not be remarkable (especially not today); more remarkable is that the PC was almost 3 years old at the time, and in those 3 years I had never noticed that the COM was missing. So maybe the PC manufacturer was right, concluding that COM is obsolete.
(Later, I discovered that the mainboard actually was equipped with a COM header. I even found an old bracket with both COM and LPT sockets and cables/plugs that fit right onto the headers. That was long after we had solved my friend's problem in other ways.)
My basement is full of old equipment that I keep as a miniature computer museum. I'd sure like to be able to demonstrate it in operation. But for a lot of it, I no longer have an operational PC with the right interface. Maybe I was using a dedicated interface card, but I have operational PC with a matching bus.
In one case (an SPDIF card with both input and output), the manufacturer switched into software-only, low level drivers for other manufacturer's HW - but dropped drivers for their own old HW! So when I updated to WinXP, I lost that card (even though it would still fit on my mainboard).
External media is another thing: I've got floppy disks in four sizes (counting different densities makes it 9). Tape cassettes in four formats. A couple removable hard disk formats. I have operational readers for none of them. I've got documents, videos, sound files and digital photos in several dozen different formats that I may or may not have a reader for. It is like the COM port: I really haven't looked for it for a while.
Such is life, and it is getting sucher and sucher.
CD/DVDs are obsolete; more and more music/movies are unavailable in physical formats. Some of my friends more or less forced me to enable the WiFi in my home - I prefer cabled network, but they couldn't access that from their smartphones and tablets (and, being modern people, they would get mentally sick if they had to abstain from online media for more than a few minutes).
Most devices still have USB ports, though. We'll have to cross our fingers that there won't be a 'D' plug for a few year (I've been through 6 different device-side USB plugs prior to the C plug!). You can buy Ethernet interfaces, CD/DVD readers, 3.5" floppy readers (at least you could - I've got one), sound cards, COM and LPT adapters, MIDI adapters, all-in-one readers for a dozen different memory card formats, and almost anything else you can think of, all with USB interfaces. The only disadvantage is that your (physical) desktop more and more resembles a bowl of spaghetti.
To be honest: If we really could throw out everything from COM/LPT to HDMI, for everything from modems through printers, disks, cameras and displays, and replace it with USB4, I would welcome it! But it won't happen. Major companies will add twists and quirks to ensure that equipment from competing manufacturers won't work with theirs. Academics will argue that swapping the meaning of two bits will improve performance by 0.01%, and this must be adopted even though incompatible (ref. HDLC/SDLC/Tannenbaum). The OSS communities will make their own version to prove that they can do better than any of the six biggest monopolists competing in the field
Today, it looks as if WiFi is The One and Only Solution. (Well, it is actually something like 6 or 8 alternate solutions, but just like USB, quite different alternate technologies are packed under a single hood with a single name, for marketing purposes.) Others will pop up. WiFi won't be The One any more than USB4 will.
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trønderen wrote: Such is life, and it is getting sucher and sucher.
Too true! And just to let you know, I intend to remember (and purloin) your words. 
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Quote: I've got floppy disks in four sizes (counting different densities makes it 9). Tape cassettes in four formats.
Tapes. Impressive.
I've got audio tapes, for the C64, filled with games, including (IIRC) River Raid and Boulder Dash. Too bad that neither the computer, nor the power brick it came with, work anymore. Pretty certain the tape driver still works, but impossible to tell.
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Heh, that brought back memories. I have my VIC-20 and tape drive in a box in the attic. The last time I had it out was 2009, but I was a little amazed to find it still worked then! I was able to read at least some of the stuff on those old tapes. I actually sold my first commercial software for the VIC and the C64 back in the early 80s. "Alarmex" it was called, and was kind of a toy alarm system, a combination of software and hardware that plugged into the joystick port, which I hand-assembled in my kitchen. I ultimately sold 1000 copies of it, wholesale through Protecto Enterprises.
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What is an Attic ?
I would ask where you live but that is being nosey !
I have no basement because you can not dig in the mountains of Arizona
Come to think of it never seen a basement in Phoenix
Perhaps @PIEBALDconsult will comment
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Storage space between the ceiling and roof. Yeah, I used to live in Texas, and no basements where I was there, either. I'm in Illinois now and actually have an attic and a basement, which isn't necessarily a good thing, because it's just more space to accumulate junk. I guess like my old VIC-20! 
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