That’s the thing about capitalism, it doesn’t have to be a conspiracy to be evil. Capitalism will optimize for the cheapest option to acquire the most profit, and generally the cheapest option is also the one that’s the worst for the workers/environment/consumers.

Sadly in my experience the boots theory is no longer accurate as the $50 pair of boots fall apart as quickly as the $10 pair, especially when talking about electronics. There may be longer lasting devices out there but the price is so beyond my price range that it may as well not exist.

Updated for 2024, the boots theory would read something more like a $50 pair of boots lasts for one year and is mostly comfortable to wear, the $10 pair lasts for one year but is uncomfortable to wear, and the $2000 pair of boots is comfortable and will last many years but anyone who buys them will toss them after one year anyway when “the fashion” changes.

UPDATE User SET Last name=‘Solo’ WHERE LastName=‘’;

You can thank Disney for that one.

No, they just create them and make them wildly successful so they have a backdoor in everyone’s pocket.

The challenge comes in being a scapegoat for when things go wrong (albeit a goat with a golden parachute) and a hype man for when things go right.

But as others have said AI won’t replace executives because it’s executives making the decisions to use AI, and no one with power will ever choose an option that reduces their own money.

YouTube music only, unfortunately. Unfortunate not because it’s the only expense of its type that I have, but because like so many Google products it’s a worse version of something they used to offer for free. And there isn’t a good alternative that I’ve found yet, and no music streaming service pays the artists anything worth mentioning.

My employer software has us log in with just our password, no username. I don’t know exactly what’s going on in the backend but I know I don’t like it.

I can deliver completely bugless. The secret is code that doesn’t do anything, acts the same as code that doesn’t exist.

I haven’t had problems with my wireless mice but headsets seem to get worse the more money I spend (never above $200, granted).

Because you probably do have at least two options for ISPs, it’s just that one option is DSL and lawmakers still struggle with understanding color television.

Are we sure it won’t create a paradox and destroy the universe?

Why wouldn’t they have done that years ago before he had the chance to testify? He testified the previous week, so it’s not like this prevented much…

Murder, and by extension getting away with it, costs money and even when it comes to covering up their mistakes corporations will not spend money until after it’s absolutely necessary.

Oh I completely understand the why. Get a golden parachute in your contract, hire MBAs to cannibalise the company for short-term gains, then leave the company obscenely rich before the dumpster fire you created bites anyone in the ass. Rinse and repeat until you have all the money.

For Boeing’s execs, they just got caught before they could cut and run.

The politicians who are owned by fossil fuel companies?

One person writing to their politician isn’t worth the trash can space the letter will end up in. We need to have a majority of people supporting smart energy decisions, and that starts with telling people that their opinions on nuclear energy are 50 years out of date.

a very small tax increase

That was likely painted as killing your children and causing hellfire to rain down on your home, if some political ads are to be believed. And that’s the actual issue at the heart of everything: if a corporation can’t make obscene amounts of profit doing it, it won’t get done.

Fitbits that aren’t the latest model have battery lives shorter than 12 hours (many users reporting 6 hours or less) after a firmware update. It’s a well-reported issue on the fitbit community.

And not to be rude but have you used any electronics released in the past decade? Battery life always goes to crap almost exactly 2 years after purchase, and no one releases products with replaceable batteries. Appliances use plastic parts and come with a plethora of unnecessary features all on one circuit board so when one feature breaks the appliance is dead, with replacement parts being almost as costly as a new appliance. Inkjet printers refuse to work without all the colors being full, even to the point of not scanning when out of ink. There’s even a story going around about a business-class HP printer that stopped working (full on ink) because the credit card attached to the ink subscription expired.

It’s gone long past planned obsolescence at this point. Whether it’s software or hardware, companies want you subscribed for life. Anything less and they break the devices that were able to dupe you into thinking you owned.