So the issue is summed up in this thread:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1139988
Basically this kid had a broken xbox360 that was out of warranty, so he bought a new xbox360 and returned the old, broken unit to Costco. I've heard of this being done before, so that wasn't much of an interesting event. It was the responses that followed that surprised me. People wrote things like, "Your friend is a criminal" and, "That isn't a friend worth keeping".
I don't think that doing something like that is very ethical either. But I come from a third world country where I learned that fair doesn't often exist in this world, and it is really up to you to look out for yourself.
The xbox360 is not something necessary to this kid's existence, and therefore does not really fall under my survival of the fittest mantra. But I was surprised that in that forum, not a single person brought up the point that this guy spent more than 400 dollars on a system that broke on him in a year, from a company that sends out a lot of faulty hardware. I just got an xbox360 too, and my system is already having issues and it has been less than a month. I can very well imagine that mine too will break out of warranty.
So my question is, what would you do? I don't think it is very fair to steal from a proxy corporation like Costco [when you are really targeting Microsoft], but at the same time, I do not think it is up to a user to absorb the cost of faulty manufacturing. Yes it is "unethical", but where does ethics end and practicality begin? The xbox360, regardless of the warranty period, has an expected lifetime of 5 years. It is not such a cheap item for people to constantly re-buy, and re-buying a unit that consistently fails before its expected lifetime is over (for a unit thats mtbf is consistently lower than what is considered ok) smells to me like consumer extortion. I do not think it is reasonable for this device to consistently be failing within a year's grace. I construe this as a liability that Microsoft should financially absorb, not the consumer.
In this case, I certainly wouldn't condemn my friend for his lateral practicality, although I would have suggested that he try bitching and moaning to Microsoft about it first. However, if that did not work, I would consider something like the Costco swap reasonable. Certainly not something that I would lose a friend over.
And my final question is, who are these guys that throw away friends like that? Clearly the eastern European concept of friendship is different from the American one. A friend is not something you throw away over something like what this guy did.
I'd love to hear you guys chime in. Please write what you chose on the poll and why. What should the friend have done?
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1139988
Basically this kid had a broken xbox360 that was out of warranty, so he bought a new xbox360 and returned the old, broken unit to Costco. I've heard of this being done before, so that wasn't much of an interesting event. It was the responses that followed that surprised me. People wrote things like, "Your friend is a criminal" and, "That isn't a friend worth keeping".
I don't think that doing something like that is very ethical either. But I come from a third world country where I learned that fair doesn't often exist in this world, and it is really up to you to look out for yourself.
The xbox360 is not something necessary to this kid's existence, and therefore does not really fall under my survival of the fittest mantra. But I was surprised that in that forum, not a single person brought up the point that this guy spent more than 400 dollars on a system that broke on him in a year, from a company that sends out a lot of faulty hardware. I just got an xbox360 too, and my system is already having issues and it has been less than a month. I can very well imagine that mine too will break out of warranty.
So my question is, what would you do? I don't think it is very fair to steal from a proxy corporation like Costco [when you are really targeting Microsoft], but at the same time, I do not think it is up to a user to absorb the cost of faulty manufacturing. Yes it is "unethical", but where does ethics end and practicality begin? The xbox360, regardless of the warranty period, has an expected lifetime of 5 years. It is not such a cheap item for people to constantly re-buy, and re-buying a unit that consistently fails before its expected lifetime is over (for a unit thats mtbf is consistently lower than what is considered ok) smells to me like consumer extortion. I do not think it is reasonable for this device to consistently be failing within a year's grace. I construe this as a liability that Microsoft should financially absorb, not the consumer.
In this case, I certainly wouldn't condemn my friend for his lateral practicality, although I would have suggested that he try bitching and moaning to Microsoft about it first. However, if that did not work, I would consider something like the Costco swap reasonable. Certainly not something that I would lose a friend over.
And my final question is, who are these guys that throw away friends like that? Clearly the eastern European concept of friendship is different from the American one. A friend is not something you throw away over something like what this guy did.
I'd love to hear you guys chime in. Please write what you chose on the poll and why. What should the friend have done?
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