Dropbox is Giving You A Chance To Not Let Them F#%k You

If you use Dropbox, this matters. I'm shocked that they added this arbitration clause to the Terms of Service, but they did. Here's the short version:

No matter what they do (delete your data, privacy breach, overcharging, whatever), you don’t get to sue. Instead, THEY get to choose the arbitrator according to whatever criteria they want, and thus any dispute is decided by someone they’re paying.

Also, you can’t join a class-action suit against them.

Flappy Phone

Flappy Bird, you've met your match - Flappy Phone. Except they are serious, the new Samsung Galaxy S5 has a flap over the immensely hideous USB 3 micro B port. On one hand, this is a "face palm" moment. On the other hand, I applaud them for avoiding the 2 hours of listing gimmick software features that no one cared about like they did at the S4 unveiling. 

Also worth mentioning is the fact that the fingerprint scanner is "quite unreliable and virtually impossible to activate," but I'm sure no one will notice (*cough). 

Reality Check: Disrupting the TV Industry

This isn't a summary of why the TV industry won't be disrupted. It will. This is simply a more realistic view of why click bait headlines don't accurately represent the disruption. The user experience side of this is the easy part. Once the content is available via progressive channels and technologies (akin to Netflix but without the delay from airing live) we'll finally have the disruption followed by the revitalization of the television industry we all long for so dearly.

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WhatsApp: Pay-For-Content is Alive and Well

Apple has made a strong business on trusting that consumers are willing to pay good money for great products. This WhatsApp deal demonstrates the exact same thing. People are willing to spend what they consider to be a fair amount of money for a great product with a great user experience. Obviously some people don't call Apple's prices "fair," but that's a topic for another time.

This $19B WhatsApp deal makes me extremely happy (and I don't use WhatsApp or Facebook) if only for the reason of demonstrating that a customer experience focused product still has tremendous value. We don't need free products with ad support to make the world spin.