[nylug-talk] Problems with Citibank website

[Peter C. Norton]

On Sat, Nov 03, 2007 at 10:37:47PM -0400, sixtyfourbeets wrote:
> > My fix was to switch banks and inform them as to why.
> 
> My fix would be for all the Linux users of the world to buy up Citibank
> stock and force Citibank to make the change or vote to change their board.

The wealth of all linux advocates would probably amount to about 1% of
the stock in citigroup, and that's assuming some pretty damn rich
advocates. They have a market cap of 180 Billion dollars. From the
individual end, you're far better off trying to be noisy about issues
from the consumer end. And it's much more likely that things in citi
will be solved by politics than by pressure from a dispersed
minority. Eg. Cancel your credit card, tell them the cards web site
sucks compared to the consumer bank and investment sites, and then
write letters to those two parts of the bank telling them how much
more you like their website and why. Every couple of months. Then,
keep calling the cards tech support and asking them if they're as good
as the other parts' web site.
 
> Considering the financial strain that banks and brokerage houses are
> going under now and the billions they havent finished writing off their
> stocks are trading now and will be trading at a 'discount'

Yes, they are trading at a "discount". They couldn't move above 50 for
a while, and now they're trading well below 40. But this is a
post-bubble market, so you really don't know if even at 50% of the
former value whether you're getting into a great deal or taking a bath.
 
> I'll tell you, as Linux users we know how to complain a lot about
> standards this and GPL that.  But we better grow some b at lls and
> get serious about changing the world.
> 
> Collectively we could technically own Sun (Nasdaq: JAVA),
> Citibank (NYSE: C).  Give Merril a few months and they will
> be buyable (NYSE: MER).
> I can run my mouth all day about this and no way could I possibly
> do this myself.

I disagree that collectively we could own (eg. buy all of or a
substantial portion of these companies) You'd have much better luck
going to regulators. The finanical shops are heavily regulated and
audited on many fronts. I think it's more reasonable to say that a web
site should work with all browsers that pass a particular test
suite. Maybe they already so, since the breakages seem to be somewhat
arbitrary from pwerson to person.
 
> If you guys want to win you better play the game better than the
> big dogs.

Citi and Merril already *use* a heck of a lot of linux. There are
kiosk installations in citi that run linux (though not in the states
as of the last time I saw). They're not against you, they're mostly
against themselves.

In any case, the big dog games are about patience. Linux has come a
*long* way and is looking yet stronger.

-Peter

-- 
The 5 year plan:
In five years we'll make up another plan.
Or just re-use this one.