Sounds like really poor personal finances. An individual should have at least 6 months to a year of savings so a 2-4 week outage is really no dent at all to your well being.
Ah, so I'm guessing you understand this guy's situation entirely, allowing you to comment on his personal finances without sounding like a jackass. Otherwise, you wouldn't have posted, right?
"Apple removed my software (how I pay the bills) from the Mac App Store"
"We've lost nearly half a month of income (so far) due to this and there is also some question as to when we might hope to see payment from Apple for the previous month's (January) software sales. It looks like that may not happen any time soon. (This isn't the only case where Apple has hurt people who do things right lately.)"
So the individual hasn't seen a check for 2 months. We are a nation that loves to buy more than we can afford. Why should I feel sorry and bail someone out for making poor choices prior to this two month period of suckiness handed down by Apple?
I am taking it as an opportunity to remind people. That rainy days happen. And it's best if you plan in advance. However, we as a society would rather buy a brand new iPad 3 instead of put money in the bank.
In my opinion it's even more irresponsible to not have such savings when you're raising a family. Maybe they had some big medical expenses but to be in such dire straits after 2 months is indicative of some poor planning either way.
Yes, you're entirely correct. There are countless situations that people might find themselves short of money and an event like this ruins their finances.
For the grandparent, consider my scenario. My wife lost her job a few years ago and was unable to find a new one since then (apart from some low-paying unstable jobs now and then). During the course of these few years our savings were eaten bit by bit and we're now reduced to a situation where we live literally from month to month. We've reduced the expenses as much as we could (for example, no winter vacation this year or no eating out), but still my paycheck can barely cover monthly expenses. No savings left for rainy days. And I fear that an exceptional event might be ruinous for our finances. My two kids are too small to be aware of this, but it still pains me.
It seems like a jerky thing to say. However, by the looks of things, OP had a couple of years to save up for a rainy day.
I'm willing to grant that apple is horrible, evil, son of the devil, voted for Palin, whatever. but really, is this any worse than a car accident or a heart attack?
"is this any worse than a car accident or a heart attack?"
In some ways yes. We generally have car and medical insurance to help with the financial side of catastrophic events. There is no 'software dev' insurance to help mitigate things if someone doesn't pay you or reneges on their contract. You have to bear all the costs of legal and administrative costs in chasing down the other party.
Perhaps some dev insurance program would be able to bear up to $x legal cost in exchange for y% of your burden.
