Louis Rossmann made a video on it, and something that came to mind while I was watching it was that while regulation can in fact be abused, I think some regulation has to be in place because a company that can charge whatever it wants for a car doing this just for the sake of control is awful. Do we really own the things we buy, or do the corporations?
I know in the EU, they have a lot more laws/regulations about warranties and other R2R shit, I just want to be able to fix the shit I own by myself without the company hindering me from doing so because they want to treat me like a leasee while charging me purchase prices.
Edit: Starting in South Korea, but very concerned that it could be brought here considering horse armor started the gaming industry’s bullshit.
I notice this with a lot of stuff, particularly the cashless trend, the removal of services and infrastructure (road access, public transit, payphones, post boxes, etc.), and even the removal of objectively useful business branches, like the only bank or post office in a whole town, or region, let’s say (a regular occurrence, where I live)…
These people a) live on their smartphones, b) are not poor (so they’ll never have their phone service cut off, and so will never need a payphone, or a fucking post box), c) rarely leave the house, d) do everything online, and e) think that EVERYONE is exactly like them, and that if they aren’t, they’re some sort of “anti-corporate Luddite standing in the way of muh progress”, which is literally what I was told on local subreddits when I pointed this out…
Live in a commuter town. It is very (generally upper) middle class, but I’m below the poverty line. As a result, almost none of those services I mentioned above exist here anymore, simply because “the upper middle class” here doesn’t care, and people living in the cities (which this isn’t) don’t have to deal with bald-faced corporate bastardry like that so much, so they don’t care, “lol”.
Especially galling when it is a government entity (Australia Post, the National Broadband Network, partly) doing this, while also signalling their “wokeness”, and giving the executives Cartier watches as “bonuses” (that’s a whole saga. Seriously, look it up). It’s fucking insane, and almost sickening, how “Gordon Gecko” they are…
Literally the entire “town centre” here is pedestrianised and “corporatized”, now. It’s fucked. They didn’t ask, they just did it. Even the parkland…
The whole thing is a fucking nightmare, yet the yuppie millennials around me have their wholefoods (literally), and their fucking “healthy takeaways”, so me raising these issues just makes me a “Luddite”. I kid you not. 😒
I used to live in such an area. At least somewhat but nowhere near the extreme. It was more of a new build area and the main reason I moved is everything got out of hand in a lot of those respects. I've been to dinner, hung out, whatever with people like that where they just look at their phone the whole damn time. It's a bit of a pet peeve of mine, like really, I took my time for this and you just sit on your phone. I've been very fortunate to build a small friend group and small family group of people that I get along with and while I wouldn't say we are like minded on everything political, we are like minded in how we do things and get along. Even more so since Covid, I really just would rather spend my friends time strengthening those relationships than bothering for a bigger group of people that would jut irritate me. So that's what I do to get by. I don't bother with people otherwise. If it's family I'm stuck with I'll tolerate them or just ignore them, because in the end I have my few close ones that I know are there.
I have called myself an old codger several times, so I guess the same as a luddite. Mainly because I don't like everything on my phone. I use my computer for most things I need tech for. I don't want to pay to park with my phone, use it for event tickets, look at a damn restaurant menu on it, etc. I've surprised people when I say I've never done a Zoom call and honestly have no idea how. Only video call I ever do is Facetime with a certain family member, because we are really close and don't live in the same town and he's young and accustomed to it. I use my phone for talk, text, and music otherwise and that's about it. Everything else can go back to the old ways.
Anyway, what you wrote is très wholesome, and I agree completely, ha.
Funny how we develop as people.
I’m nothing like my parents at all, and yet I completely agree with what you said there, and yet we’re just internet strangers, lol.
I have no idea why I am the person I am, but it certainly doesn’t seem to be genetic (unless I was adopted and just… never told. They never actually showed me the birth certificate, or any of that), or indeed particularly… Closely environmental, because I really didn’t learn this stuff from my peers at school, or whatever, lol…
I suspect it’s the combination of a few key teachers, and my grandparents, perhaps. But honestly, who knows!
I give a ton of credit to how I am to my dad and my grandfathers. There's a lot of dysfunction especially amongst the women in the family, but I spent a lot of time with my grandfathers just tagging along with them doing day to day man stuff.
Yeah it’s shit, lol…
It’s very weird living in what I would call a “services desert” (the payphone thing is particularly annoying/frustrating, as is the loss of the post office and bank branch, and the complete lack of evening/weekend public transport), but you know what’s weirder??
My parents, who are obviously more than twice my age, lol, do not think like either you or I do (you’ve seen my previous posts, I believe. You know enough, from that, that this will probably be no surprise). They fucking love being on their phones/laptops all the time. They love streaming, and hacked my account, to get access to streaming services they couldn’t be bothered organizing themselves.
They hate the idea of payphones. They hate letters. Shopping in person is “inconvenient” to them. As is having to go in to teach students (they do occasional Uni work) in person.
They would much rather just use Zoom.
They’re so fucking bonkers that they literally prefer to write letters (despite what I said previously) to their neighbours, rather than speak to them, whenever there is an issue/dispute…
So…
This clearly isn’t a “genetic” predisposition, lol.
I’m much more like you, and agree completely. Despite, or perhaps in spite of, both of my “gene donors”…
I hadn’t really noticed before, so much, but the pub (you know, the traditional “pub”) is pretty much my element, lol. I love shooting the shit and talking to people while drinking beer and watching the game/band/fireplace. Exactly as I did last night.
Vaguely like Cheers, but actually real, lol.
Those places are disappearing, here, though, unfortunately…
My Dad? Hates pubs. Hates people who go to pubs (except for, say, the hipster “gastropub”, lol). And my mother wouldn’t be caught dead in one. Even for my birthday.
So…
We are more than the sum of our genetic parts, basically, I suppose!
It's funny even my grandmother who is over 80 spends forever on her phone and will totally ignore you when you visit. Weird. She's hypocritical about it too, my teen cousin was over there visiting and said she was getting all over him for being on his phone the whole time, yet she will do just the same when you're there. He's way less attached to his phone than she is normally, just wasn't really having a good day and was texting me kinda blowing off steam. I'm a bit of his best friend fun uncle even though I'm technically not his uncle.