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0 pointscabinguy8y ago0 comments

Yea, the margins went from out-of-this-world to terrible as the price of new laptops came down. We used paypal and a few other (way worse) credit card processors. We also accepted checks and money orders by mail.

Edit: Another interesting tidbit. We were such a large paypal customer at the time that we were invited into their IPO. Bear Stearns (I think) called us 5 times trying to get us to buy in...but it was right after the .com crash and we chickened out. We would have doubled our money that day ;(

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Cthulhu_8y ago

It's a real shame tbf, the drop in laptop prices means a lot more stuff is just thrown out and turned to e-waste instead of repaired / refurbished and resold, with fixing electronics having reached such a low point that it's become a somewhat rebellious volunteer job now.

wink8y ago

I don't think it's a shame at all, I bought my first laptop in 2004 for iirc 2200 EUR, in my 2nd year of university. (OK, I wanted a nice laptop and not the cheapest piece of junk(.

It served me well for quite a few years, but I wasn't the starving student type, but actually working part-time as a programmer. I also wouldn't say this laptop was essential to finishing my studies, but (computer science) it was very, very handy.

SamReidHughes8y ago

Well, old laptops really suck, so it's not that bad.

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