Great... this is what we call "planned obsolescense"... when a company has to figure out how to sell the same thing over and over again to the same consumers.
I know that this industry has rapid technological advancement, but I'd venture to guess that things aren't always getting better. Case in point: when the newest MS cash-cow works like shit.
It just goes to show that planned obsolescense is built into nealry every layer of the computer and software industry, not because they're always making better products (arguable), but because they need to keep making money and dipshits like us can't do anything about it even if we wanted to.
What would it be like if we had to pay for another set of furniture every 3 years? The old stuff works fine, it does what we want it to, but for some reason, society and business forces everyone to switch over and buy new furniture. It may not work any better (after all, we only use it for a few basic purposes [hint hint]), and it might only be distinguished by a few little things that are different. But we, like the tools we are, continue to fork over the cash to stay up on the changes.
The government sometimes forces technological change in order to meet stipulations of public policy, like health and safety, or environmental considerations... or oftentimes to satisfy lobbyists. In this case, we have a company (MS) that runs one of the most blatant monopolies in the history of business forcing technological change, not because anything is really any better, but because they need to make money. The fact that the old product (Vista) was a pile of shit only adds further (planned) impetus to shift over to the new product.
