Is there a Windows license available to consumers that allows simultaneous installation on multiple VMs under a non-Windows-based hypervisor?

And yet even in the supposedly so competitive SV tech market, abusive practices like forcing employees to sign arbitration agreements, at-will employment (can be dismissed with zero notice or severance and for no or any reason not prohibited by law), "unlimited" vacation that is really meant to discourage you from taking it, and long workweeks with no overtime pay are common.

Who doesn't get to deal with any of the above? Union employees (for the most part).

No, there have been dozens or hundreds of companies claiming that tax cuts were responsible for employee compensation increases. Many of those were one-time bonuses, but the tax cuts are ongoing. In some cases where the benefits were ongoing (like Walmart's hourly pay increase), you'll find that they tend to coincide with the overall trend of state minimum wage increases. This is just PR: they're getting ahead of the trend and trying to attribute it to tax cuts rather than other forces.

Also, since employee compensation was tax-deductible even before the tax cut, taxes certainly weren't stopping companies from raising wages before the tax cut.

Yes, those costs will ultimately be embedded in product pricing and borne by the customer, but that's good. It gives vendors a financial incentive to develop more secure software and reduce their security update costs (and earn more profit). (Nothing is perfectly secure, but a culture change and following certain practices can help. Think Microsoft pre-trustworthy computing memo and Microsoft today.)

The ideal model for locally-run software, in my opinion, is to sell perpetual licenses to each major version for a one-time cost and promise security and maintenance updates for a certain period. New features can go into new major versions that users have to pay for (sometimes with discounted upgrade pricing), or, on a discretionary basis, as free updates.

This used to be the typical business model for locally-run software. Microsoft, for example, sold Windows versions for a one-time cost, promised security and some other level of updates until a certain year (and new features could be added on a discretionary basis), and provided upgrade pricing for new major versions that added new features. This kept control in users' hands, as their paid-for software could be used forever (at least until and unless external factors, like hardware incompatibilities, prevented it from working), though of course it would be very dumb to use, say, XP today on an Internet-connected machine. I am generally against subscription models for local software where there is no legitimate reliance on an outside service, and also against the trend of trying to create such a reliance for no legitimate reason ("We've added cloud sync and that's what the subscription is for. Servers cost money every month, which is why we're charging you every month." - except I can handle my own file storage and don't want your sync service).

That is to say that I personally (and again, this is just my opinion) don't care about any new features and would be unlikely to upgrade from version 6 on that basis. I may upgrade to ensure I will continue receiving security updates and OS and browser extension compatibility updates, but it would be nice to know how long such updates to version 7 are guaranteed for (presumably they will eventually release version 8 for a new fee and discontinue such updates to version 7).

> (and servers / APIs for it)

The users (like me) who are against subscriptions are only using local vaults (managing the storage sync ourselves) and do not care for or want the web/sync services.

The former would clearly run into 1st Amendment concerns, but I'm hopeful the latter can be allowed without the same concerns. Does the EFF oppose the latter type?

I wouldn't rely on this because it turns your phone into a single point of failure (your battery could die or your phone could fail at the wrong time). Similarly, I would never rely on mobile wallets without physical cards as a backup.

The public wasn't turned off of Equifax because they weren't Equifax's customers in the first place.

Remember PowerPC Macs?

It shouldn't even affect Stripe all that much. The CC fees are just a pass-through expense for them; their product is the infrastructure value-add, which AFAIK nobody is suggesting needs to be price-regulated.

One of the reasons the Federal Reserve was created was to eliminate rent-seeking by banks in check clearing. (The previous system was that banks would clear checks directly among each other, leading to abuses where banks would charge exorbitant fees to other banks.) I'd argue credit/debit cards are just as important today as checks were in 1913. A functioning economy requires a functioning payment system.

The worker would qualify for unemployment benefits even if fired for good-faith poor performance. For terminations, only gross misconduct (criminal acts, deliberately failing to work, etc.) is disqualifying.

> How do I know this? Because it's the only logical thing. Corporations like stability because it makes their profits predictable and lets them control the mood in the room (innovation, regulation, etc). Low taxes for the rich mean chaos - an extremely large, underpaid, underfed, underrepresented bottom class will not be good for the rich in the long run. High taxes for the rich mean a well-sustained middle class, with money to spend on products made by the corporations. It is also a safer place, with less homelessness, less violence, less hatred.

Agreed. The US has enough economic leverage to ignore the silly threats of "we're going to move our business out of the US if you do [something]" or "the rich will move away if you do [something]." Fine, go ahead and stop operating in one of the largest developed markets in the world. Sounds like a very wise business move (not).