#smart buying cheap

[juniperhillpatient]

me: *goes to the family dollar to get some essentials to help spread the basics I have until my next paycheck like a good little poor person*

family dollar, beckoning me like the snake beckoned eve in the garden:

[iidsch]

isnt it crazy that someone can make a completely legal app for ios but if apple doesn't want it in its app store because of lol lmao reasons you have to then go through a gazillion loops just to get this one app and also millions of people buy apple's products because they don't see the problem with an operating system that fully controls what you can or can't have on your device and also has several other major problems. insane

[nylarac]

the other day when i was at my grandma's i picked up her phone (a classic flip phone) to pass it to her and was like man i forgot how nice flip phones feel in your hand

much like the gameboy advance so simple and sturdy and pleasant

[tumblasha]

the urge to get retro tech is like an ocean’s wave. it comes and goes, their movement holding me in place

[wurmwizzard]

I have found two (2) exquisite pieces of furniture on the side of the road this past week. I'm choosing to believe these are birthday gifts from the universe! So, thank you world for free things in the garbage.

[icarrymany]

i figured id just make this its own post to avoid yappin so much in ppls tags

[tennisarchives]

so i bought a month of wtatv specifically to watch naomi interviews despite knowing that i won’t rly use it much during ao season anyway who else is making responsible financial decisions today

[weyrleaders]

i decided to call it and use this prisma cub i bred as my heir so ive started work on his looks (one breed-only marking is enough i guess i just wish it was okapi instead of zebra but what can you do) but unfortunately i want him to have feline 1 orchid and either pulsar dim (preferred) or pulsar mottled vents (acceptable), and this is the equivalent of roughly $82.50 unless i want to grind monkey teeth forever

[piyushflip]

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[yourplaceinaugust]

so when me and my sister moved out my parents bought us each the cheapest printer they could find (even though they can afford the good ones) and so now i have a exam tomorrow and my printer won't work and neither of my parents are answering their phones im actually crying

[keyofw]

I know it's no longer a novel observation how the entire internet is enshittified now but it's still shocking that so many of the things we depend on had such a sudden and marked decline in quality.

Google results are mostly ads. Facebook is 90% ads, 10% domestic terrorists. Twitter is... well, not Twitter and it's only good for Nazis to yell at each other in the hopes they make .0004 cents per tweet. Instagram is ads. TikTok is misinformation central. YouTube serves forty-seven ads per second of videos watched.

Every news article is behind a paywall, and some of them are just AI-text garbled from someone else's much better article, also behind a paywall.

AI art has made it impossible to find images you want. It's also exploded the use and potential use of misinformation. Your data is now being fed to generative AIs to make cheap slop that only makes information harder to find and source.

Everyone wants you using their app instead of a web browser so that you aren't allowed to block the 3,487 ads per page that have to load.

Amazon is full of fake or low-quality dupes of the things you actually want to buy. Netflix and other streaming services are raising prices, cutting available shows, and erasing the existence of shows in order to avoid paying writers. Art hosting sites such as DeviantArt allow your work to be scraped for NFTs and generative AI without your consent or any form of compensation. Spotify has demonetized over 80% of their tracks and pays the rest astoudingly low, worse than the other streaming services which also underpay.

Everything is a subscription service which means not only are you paying for the same product in perpetuity but you never technically own any tool you use and your right to use it can be revoked at any time. Everything has to be a "smart" product so when the business inevitably folds and/or the servers shut down, your product no longer works. Hope it's not something you need!

Every company no longer accepts phone calls but routes you through a series of automated messages until finally dumping you off to an overworked and underpaid person who has no power to help you. Speaking of phones, you can't use them for calls. There are so many robocallers and scams that no one in their right mind picks up the phone anymore. Texts are going the same way. No one wants to dig through 100 scam messages to find the one from the person they actually want to talk to.

It's all just the inevitable end result of capitalism. It doesn't have to be this way. But there needs to be regulation, and fast, or the "Dead Internet Theory" will no longer be a fringe theory.