Things Not to Buy

chibamm

chibamm

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This lovely little article was on my Yahoo homepage. http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/108504/10-things-not-to-buy-in-2010
I know Yahoo is pretty bad for there reporting skills and what not, but this is just ridiculous.

The average DVD is $20? Where is she shopping.

She tries to argue that external hard drives are a thing of the past and not to buy, then completely argues the other way in the very next sentence stating how much online backup services are.

CD's? This is actually something I like to see. I'm a semi music nut and most of the time I still like to have the physical copy of the CD. I stopped illegally downloading music years ago as it defeats the purporse. I choose to support the artist so they can continue to make music. The online aspect of music has just opened more avenues for people. But people wanting a physical copy, she might be right about that one.

College students shouldn't be buying new textbooks? Kind of hard when they come out with a new edition every other freaking year.


I just found this article so....wrong on many different levels. It's like she was late for a report and just combined several articles from several different sources to make this one.
 
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The only reason people will stop buying DVDs is because they'll start buying blu-rays. Also I completely agree with you about her take on external harddrives. "Don't buy an external hard drive when you can pay more for an online backup service" Seriously? The thing about external hard drives, is that I don't have to be online to access it.
 
Yeah, Yahoo! isn't exactly the leader when it comes to technology related articles. Like when they recommend that no one buy a PS3 because the controller's batteries would die and they would have to spend another $60 to replace it.
 
[quote name='XxFuRy2Xx']Yeah, Yahoo! isn't exactly the leader when it comes to technology related articles. Like when they recommend that no one buy a PS3 because the controller's batteries would die and they would have to spend another $60 to replace it.[/QUOTE]


Yep I lol'd at that one, wonder if ms or Nintendo gave them a kickback for that article.....
 
[quote name='Dunvane']I actually read that exact article this morning and showed it to my boss just because of how stupid it is.[/QUOTE]

I read it this morning as well, and showed the other IT guy here. We both laughed at the external HDD the most.
 
Yeah, pretty dumb article. I don't buy nearly as many movies as I used to because I hardly ever watch any of the 300+ on my shelf, preferring to watch something from the first time from Netflix. But I still buy my favorites that I want in my collection.

CDs I still buy, even though I do most of my listeing via mp3s I rip from them. I just like having the physical copy, liner notes etc.

External Harddrive is a necissity for me since I have tons of data, papers etc. to back up--and to move back and forth between my work PC and my work laptop as I work from home a lot.

Smartphones I can't comment on as I've not taken that plunge--don't need one enough to pay for the data plans as I'm at a PC so much of the time anyway, and don't travel that much currently.

Camera's I'm indifferent on as I'm not much of a photo taker and seldom use the small Sony Cybershot my g/f gave me.

Landline I do 100% agree with. I've not had a land line since 2004 or 2005. My cell phone covers all my needs on that front.
 
Since this is in the section Yahoo Finance, I'm guessing this is meant to be a list of "trends" for investors, who are oftentimes people with much more money than savvy. It's listing a bunch of facts about areas of trades that, while not describing every detail of each industry, are actually well-known facts for most people following them.

Maybe "things not to buy" means "things you shouldn't invest in", or at least things you should know if you want to invest?
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']Landline I do 100% agree with. I've not had a land line since 2004 or 2005. My cell phone covers all my needs on that front.[/QUOTE]

I have been using my cell phone for most of my needs since 2005. Recently- I saw an article (I forget where) about the radiation edmitted by cell phones... since then- I have used it significantly less, and a laneline a lot more. Gotta be careful from that stuff!
 
Not really the best article, but I guess she has to do something for that paycheck.

DVDs - Haven't bought any for myself for a while, don't intend to buy them in the future (except as gifts). I mostly just use netflix and hulu now, I rarely want to watch the same thing more than once and I've gotten out of the habit of having the TV on as background noise or wasting time watching the same TV episodes over again on DVD.

Home Telephone - Yeah, I don't have one of those and don't intend to get one. I just moved out of my parents' house about 6 months ago, but before that we had gotten rid of our landline back in 2006 or so when we got a cell phone plan.

External Hard Drives - I'll be getting one soon. Online backup is a decent idea, but I wouldn't use it as my main backup. I plan on having 2 layers of redundancy anyway, a RAID 1 in my desktop and a regular backup on an external HD.

Smartphone - I'd get one, but I'm not paying for an expensive data plan or a crazy expensive per-mb charge. Eventually the cost might be outweighed by the benefit.

Camera - don't really need one now, my gf has a cybershot.

Newspaper Subscriptions - lol.

CDs - Most of the music I listen to either costs the same as or only $2 or $3 more for a CD than dling the album off iTunes. Besides the immediate availability it seems kinda stupid not to get the CD, considering I get the physical copy and artwork with it that's definitely worth $0-3 IMO. What I'd love to see happen is iTunes just offering everything DL+CD for an extra $1 or $2.

New Textbooks - Don't need now, but I'd never buy a new one if a used one was available (and not a piece of shit).

Gas-guzzling cars - Sure, when this one dies and I have to buy another.

Energy Inefficient Homes + Appliances - I rent, so that has limited applicability.

Boredom.
 
[quote name='flameofdoom666']I have been using my cell phone for most of my needs since 2005. Recently- I saw an article (I forget where) about the radiation edmitted by cell phones... since then- I have used it significantly less, and a laneline a lot more. Gotta be careful from that stuff![/QUOTE]

I never worry about that kind of stuff really. When it's your time to go, it's your time to go IMO. I'm going to do what I want to do and not worry about every little thing that could have some small chance of being bad for you in the long term.
 
AFAIK that radiation is negligible. And if you're using the phone at home you can just use a headset with the phone on a desk or something and pretty much eliminate that anyway.
 
Hahah, buying a DSLR instead of a point-and-shoot. Point-and-shoots are great for one thing: portability. Lugging around a DSLR and several lenses can get annoying, especially if your goal isn't technically great pictures but just capturing memories.

I like buying CDs because I get more control over the digital copy, I can choose bitrate and all that. Sounds like I'm power tripping, but when you get a decent audio, bad audio jumps out you really fast. It's how I learned Kanye's "808s and Heartbreak" album sounded technically bad when listened on anything that wasn't my cruddy car speakers.

I also like newspapers, mainly because I read my news in the morning and in the evening and I do it when I'm eating. I don't like getting food all over my computer, there's already enough in my keyboard as it is.

Mozy and Carbonite are backup services. You don't put your stuff on there so that you can get more stuff on your HD, you put stuff there in case your HD fails (but more likely, you put it on there in case your house burns down; easy off-site syncing backup). That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.
 
[quote name='Strell']The camera section is just....pathetic. For a host of reasons.[/QUOTE]

I read this article this morning, and when I got done reading the section on cameras, I stood up, pointed at the screen, and said "ha ha!" like Nelson does on The Simpsons.
 
Ok. So I could spend $70 to get ~500Gb of storage from an external HDD or I could spend $70 a year to save it online? Where exactly does the benefit of that come in?

External HDD: You can have it with you at all times. Don't have to worry about internet issues. Cheap. Long lasting
 
[quote name='slickkill77']Ok. So I could spend $70 to get ~500Gb of storage from an external HDD or I could spend $70 a year to save it online? Where exactly does the benefit of that come in?

External HDD: You can have it with you at all times. Don't have to worry about internet issues. Cheap. Long lasting[/QUOTE]

Yep, and for me a lot of my back up is research data, a lot of which has confidentiality issues with human subjects rules which would keep me from storing it on online back up sites anyway.
 
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