Sing it Merth!
That is the truth and nothing but the truth, you stated there.
Transparent fixes to lower points of service, and by the way keep the profits from the savings. Sony does it with all products, from the walkman to their EQ and SOE. I loved this practice when I was first introduced to it and saw it inside the Betamax VCR's.
Betamax what? Find here: --->
http://www.urbanlegends.com/products/beta_vs_vhs.html
Open a first run of one of their hardware products and note the revision on the PCB. Open a newer manufactured date of said product and note the revision (also notice the board changed and less population of transistors and circuits.) Saving a dollar per device is huge with quantities they move.
Same with SOE bandwidth which I believe helped satisfaction for dialup. It also enabled dialup users to get better at dual boxing.
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