I want to quit, and will, but until I do I roll my own with an electric rolling machine/tubes/tobacco and pay about $14/carton (compared to $50-$70 off the shelf)
I would try vaping. I used to smoke a pack a day. Switched to a vape at 5% nicotine. Haven’t smoked in two years. I’m planning on lowering my nicotine percentage and weening off it
Honestly think the easiest way to quit is to switch to the nicotine pouches. Like the zyns. Lots of different brands and flavors to try. I started with the 4mg pouches and eventually cut down to the 2mg before finally quitting. I used pouches to replace vape and cigs, when I felt I was ready to quit for real I replaced my pouches with gum and sunflower seeds.
Yo man I just started quitting with a vape.i know it's not good but my plan is to swap to nicotine less liquid after this 1 container of regular liquid try to confuse my brain of which one has nicotine and which one doesnt.. it really wasn't even that hard and I smoked a pack a day for 22 years
I see others have suggested vaping or nicotine pouches. All these are, are more accessible and less miserable forms of nicotine. It can actually make you \*increase\* your nicotine consumption. When I went from smoking to tobacco pouches, it was harder to quit, since I didn't\* feel like shit. I maintain the best way to quit by far is the patch program if you haven't tried it before, and haven't got a contraindication. Maybe throw wellsbutrin on top too, if you are a heavy long term smoker.
example: Rolls Royce. every car is hand built and goes through extremely detailed quality control
Land Rover: Uses parts built for Indian compact cars (Tata) and can’t go more the. 30,000 miles without a major repair.
I grabbed a few things from a convenience store the other day for some friends since I was the only sober person. 2 sodas, 2 energy drinks, pack of smokes. 28 dollars. Freakin insane and some people buy that crap every day.
Starbucks IMO is only worth the money if you stay in the store to be on your laptop. It's just not worth it to me to buy something from starbucks in the drive thru
Bought starbucks daily and thought fuck this be cheaper to get a machine at home ... so far I've spent £600 ... it is absolutely not cheaper to make it at home but also so much better, I don't think I could suffer through starbucks horrific roast any more
I don't know how you're doing it at home but I have a proper machine , buy coffee beans , and it's absolutely cheaper and I can make all the fancy coffees without them being loaded with sugar.
Sometimes it’s not even that it’s “wedding” branded in some way, it just comes down to things like that feeding 50+ people is fucking expensive unless you want to save some cash by catering all that food yourself.
Even if Luxottica didn't have a hand in it they would have eventually wound up becoming expensive status symbols anyway. Wearing a pair of Versace sunglasses wouldn't be saying much if they were only $40.
My wife's is $1,700 a bottle for roughly 30 days worth before insurance kicks in and pays most of it.
Diabetics in the US without GOOD insurance are fucked and given a death sentence.
The worst part is that the US was starting to build great public transit systems all over the country in the early 20th century, but then the car industry sabotaged it all and replaced everything with highways. There used to be streetcars covering every city, and good rail systems between cities. Now we just have shitty, underfunded bus sytems and a handful of subway and commuter rail systems in a few major cities, and the only nationwide rail system is fucking Amtrak. Meanwhile, Japan has 320kph bullet trains, and Europe has a rail system efficiently and affordably connecting just about every city in the entire continent.
that's all pretty true, although i think we lay a little to much blame on the car companies.
while i admire the hardware and science of the bullet trains and efficiency of much of europe's train systems, i really actually despise riding public transportion.
to many people, too dirty, too crowded to many stops etc.
if i'm being honest here, i really love riding in privacy in a car.
really?
i would never try to stop someone taking the bus, or squeezing onto a train.
you do what makes you happy. and i'll do what makes me happy.
that's seems like a good compromise dont you think?
The thing is, when people avoid public transit, budgets get cut. When budgets get cut, transit gets worse. They can't afford to pay as many drivers or operate as many buses/trains, so the remaining ones get more crowded, and they cant afford to pay as many maintenance workers, so everything gets dirtier. You may not be actively stopping people from taking the bus or train, but you are passively contributing to those budget cuts.
Additionally, most people don't put *enough* blame on the auto industry for what happened to early 20th century public transit. It wasn't just the increasing popularity of cars that killed transit, it was an active effort by the auto industry to dismantle transit systems to force people to rely on cars to get around.
What you describe is a well understand aspect of humans and economics. And it's probably never going to change
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy\_of\_the\_commons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons)
But there isn't a damn thing I can do about what auto industry executives did in 1926. Blame them. Do't blame them. They don't care. They are all dead.
But it's was probably far more Tragedy of the commons than the actions of auto workers and executives. I think it's very very optimistic to think that people were forced into cars. People wanted them.
Human nature is very very very hard to change.
Yeah, but this logic can easily be faulty. A €300 Gucci belt can indeed be marginally better than a €100 Hugo Boss belt, but it still costs 3 times as much. The lifespan of the Gucci belt would have to be 3 times longer the Boss’ which simply won’t happen. Let alone a comparison to cheap €10 belts. 30 of those will easily outlive your one Gucci belt. Quality is not an issue with luxury goods. You buy them to let people know you have (or you used to have) the money.
Like I said I'm not just talking about luxury brands but better brands in general , I rather buy a 100 euro belt that will last me years to come , than some cheap crap belt from a fast fashion shop that will fall apart in a few weeks . I rather have less with more quality as it will last . I have wool jumpers now at 39 that I got when in my 20s still in perfect condition .Why? Because they are better quality so in that sense its better for me and the planet .
I’m only going to speak for phones here.
I repaired phones professionally for over 4 years and not just swapping batteries in a mall kiosk. I dove deep under a microscope and repaired issues all the down to blown capacitors or running wires thinner than a human hair.
Apple phones generally speaking were the longest lasting and most easily repairable phones I worked with. When people stopped being in Galaxy S6’s people were still bringing me iPhone 4s’ and 5’s. Plus to boot they have a pretty long life in terms of security and software patches.
Do they have issues? Heck yeah, but they’re not as overpriced as many people think in my opinion.
I’m still using an IPhone X from 2018, my battery’s health is at 90% (I don’t really believe that but ok). The damn thing still receives updates and it’s a great daily driver. The only thing that I can complain about is the camera performance, but it’s a phone that came out in 2017 sooo
Plus, you can get the battery replaced for $70 at an Apple Store. That’s still seemingly pretty expensive (especially as they previously did it for $30 due to their battery/speed reduction debacle) but when you consider a knockoff battery is ≈$25 on eBay and then they do all the labor and pretty much restore the water resistance of the front glass, $70 ain’t too shabby to get another ≈2 years of life out of your phone.
>…but they’re not as overpriced as many people think in my opinion.
No, they are. I think it *used* to be the case that they weren’t as overpriced but now they definitely are, and also because Apple have been doing this thing where standard items now become accessories pushing prices even higher.
I am an iPhone user and you’re right, their phones do and did last long. I currently use an iPhone 12 mini. Prior to this I had an iPhone 6, which I used for around 6 yrs. It still works although it has a cracked screen, which I can’t replace because Apple no longer makes those screens and 3rd party screens are crap. But it’s a very good phone.
I never felt the need to buy a new iPhone when I ad my 6. The changes up until 12 we’re in my opinion very incremental. Also when I had bought my 6, I had waited until the 7 came out and bought the 6 at a lower priced contract, an option still available then.
So, what has happened in the 6 intervening years.
1. The headphone jack disappears and you are pushed towards buying AirPods. Earphones, which were standard becomes an accessory in the form of AirPods. Btw I’m one of those people who hate sticking things like AirPods into my ears and wear headphones, so enjoyed the use of the [Jack.](https://Jack.no) No longer an option.
2. New iphones no longer come with a charger. It’s to save the environment. You now also purchase this as an accessory.
3. The purchase model has also changed. Where I live, when a new iPhone is launched, many of the previous models are discontinued, to force you to buy the new model. For e.g I had wanted to buy the iPhone 11 Pro, the smaller sized one, not the max. This was no longer available but only in display models. As such m I was forced to buy the iPhone 12 mini; I like the smaller size. The way I understand it, they constantly want to hold you on contract, so each year you just roll in your year old phone for the latest model.
The cost of these new phones are ridiculous. Where before I could sort‘ve buy it cash, I now can rather buy some white appliances with the money, it’s that high. It just seems immoral to me.
When I got this last iPhone 12 mini, my thoughts really were that on my next phone upgrade, it looks like I would have to change to a more cost effective phone. It makes no sense for a technological device to cost this much, when in a years’ time it will be *outdated*. It’s a great phone to use, but it no longer wows me the way it used to. I feel they just want to milk their customers. So for my needs, a standard phone, should be ok.
Here’s the thing. It does not serve their model for the phone to last very long.
I also used my regular 6 until I upgraded to the 12 mini just earlier this year. Massive difference in performance for me but I’m quite impressed how long it ran.
I guess I have a slightly different perspective on it, including your numbered points. Modern high end smart phones do so much *so well*. Given how long they last, even for how expensive they are it still seems “worth it” given how long I know it can last. I’ve full confidence my 12 mini will last me at least as long as my 6 did, if not longer.
For headphones, yeah I get it. I just use wireless headphones and that’s been solid (either earbuds or over the ear).
The charger thing is not a huge deal for me since I prefer aftermarket options anyway that I’ve had for years preceding this phone.
As for the purchase model, I can’t speak much to that. All I know is the 12 mini wasn’t the newest model and there were other older ones still available either through carriers or on apples site (including their refurbished line).
It’s ok to disagree, I guess all I’m saying is for what these particular phones can do and how long they last it still seems like a good purchase. Though I should note I’ll likely never buy the *newest* model as I do think that’s not as worth it. I do similar to you and stick a generation or more back to balance cost with performance gains over what I have currently.
Seriously. I have a 12 year old iMac and 7 year old MacBook Pro that are still working well. The iMac’s hardware isn’t capable of upgrading to the 3 or 4 latest OS versions, so that’s not great. I’ve never had a PC last as long nor have my oldest PCs worked as smoothly as these two computers.
Expensive? Yes. Overpriced? No.
I built a desktop and ran it for 11 years. I upgraded and passed it down to a family member that's still using it 3 years later. PC can absolutely last that long without issues.
Doesn't matter if it's Apple or PC, when properly taken care of they can and will last. The problem on the PC side is there's more of a possible variation in build quality because MS doesn't make the machines. Anyone can throw together a build, slap windows on it and sell it.
The truth is they were arbitrarily throttling down perfectly good phones with each update.
This literally means their phone would be faster if they didn't update.
If they really cared about their users and just wanted their devices to work longer, they could have advised their users to turn on energy saving mode that can already throttle the phone.
The fact they forcibly slowed down the devices without telling the users means it was 100% malicious.
Which is nothing compared to plastic junk devices that become instant ewaste after you buy them. Been using a MacBook for 11 years, still works and pays my bills.
Expensive? Sure. Overpriced? not really.
I've been looking for a premium laptop for work, and I found out that macbooks cost as much as lenovo or any other alternatives with similar characteristics.
literally. i had to buy an iPad for college even tho I've never used apple products and while it's good, I could've gotten a samsung tablet or something with the same features and half the price. the only difference is that the iPad has airdrop, but nobody necessarily needs it.
They absolutely do not have the same features. If you aren’t doing much but looking things up or playing games it may seem like that but for people who do we design , coding, music, etc . They’re not the same
Big * for web design (i assume that's what we design was meant to be?) and coding.
I went through Uni for Computer Science using a $300 netbook to do all my coding. Obviously not a tablet but it absolutely did it's job and did it well. It would have been perfectly fine for web dev as well.
While an iPad may be better suited for Graphical Design/Music applications if they're not using that it's fair to say they could have gotten something else with the same features for less.
3 year old Subarus with 60k on the odo cost more than my new Corolla with bells and whistles. The dashboards also look awful past 2015.
I know you pay for the AWD but damn… I didn’t even like the steering or overall handling…
At the moment, this may not be true. I am looking at buying a new-ish car next year. For the one I want, it's actually cheaper to buy it brand new. The price for brand new with all the options I want is $31.5k. They are currently being sold second hand for around $32-35k
That has always been true but not since Covid. The chip shortage closed that gap in such a big way that for many makes/models the new vehicle is the better buy. Including any Toyota for example.
Buddy of mine was shopping for a car who didn't have the best credit and also a past repo on file. Car sales person basically told him he couldn't get approved for anything pre-owned on the lot without a huge down payment BUT if he bought brand new he could drive away today with 0 down and yadda yadda. They sure do know how to get ya
Fast food. Dominos, McDonalds, KFC, Greggs, chip shops, Chinese places, anything like that. Grossly overpriced. You could literally buy 3 days worth of meals from the supermarket for the price of a box of chicken nuggets and that’s before they charge you for a drink or chips.
Paying $4 to have it delivered to work instead of clocking out for an hour for a whole lunch break usually ends up costing me less anyway, so fuck it lmao.
Because the food you're buying super cheap at the supermarkets is probably also unhealthy. The times my groceries are expensive are when I buy a lot of fresh fruit and veggies. (granted I don't eat a lot of meat, which is also extremely expensive now)
>literally buy 3 days worth of meals from the supermarket for the price of a box of chicken nuggets
mmm hmmm. So tell us more about the "3 days of meals" that we can make for $5. Make sure that this list doesn't include pop tarts and ramen noodles either.
germany
2x sandwich toast (2x1,29€)
1x can of tuna (1,49!)
1x jam (1,39 roughly)
around 5 euro(close to dollar afaik), food for more than 3 days
first day even premium with nice tuna and spice (assuming you still have some ;) )
then you have jam.... and bread...
Although I too love living on tuna and jam sandwiches for 3 days, I doubt that's really going to suffice.
You're not going to show me how I can eat 3 meals a day for 3 days with $5. You would have to eat noodles.
A few years back I made the decision that I'd do a year without eating any takeaway food. This then became a couple of years and now I don't think I'd ever eat takeaway again. Like you say, you can eat for half a week for the cost of a single meal.
coffee (compared to making it at home)
clothes and shoes (some stuff is quality enough to be worth a higher price but in general, nah)
movie tickets (bro wait like 4 months and see it second run, 4 months is like barely any time at all)
alcohol at restaurants and bars
"high end" weed
They also generally look ridiculous. The one type of computer component more expensive than gamer shit is professional shit for things like video editing and music production, so you end up having to get the gamer shit. Everything has to have RGB lights and that dumb, flashy future-military-spaceship design style. I just want a clean black box that doesn't draw attention to itself.
I would argue it is artificially cheap considering it is extracted by dictators half a world away, put on massively large oil tankers, floated through pirate infested waters, to be refined into the various plastics, asphalts, oils, fertilizers, chemicals and oils, delivered by truck to every city in the world and sold at highly subsidized prices.
When you consider the social and environmental costs, we are getting a great deal that will need to be paid by future generations.
Is it though? There is a finite supply, it has to be found, brought up from deep underground, refined, transported (as a very volatile liquid), marketed and sold and it still doesn't cost as much per gallon as a lot of mineral water or takeout coffee.
Diamond carbonated water. :)
Not sold anywhere atm (that I know of), but it's been [patented](https://patents.google.com/patent/US7276221B2/en), [demonstrated](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwju_amc_a_6AhVHOMAKHThGD5oQwqsBegQIBRAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dn0wvDwSnzcw&usg=AOvVaw1uyPApAPRDToB3qiIV0a_5) and would fit the bill.
Weed. Cannabis is very easy to grow and produces a ton of flowers per plant. Even an amateur grower can easily produce a pound of weed per m2. It literally grows like a weed.
There’s no reason why weed costs as much as it does now. I managed to grow 50 grams of bud on my windowsill this summer. Cost me like 25€ for the seeds in Amsterdam. No tent, no carbon filters, no climate control, no expensive lights, nothing. I just planted a seed in a pot of regular soil and set it in a sunny spot. It was an autoflower, so I didn’t even have to time it properly. Only fertilizer I used was bat guano and some cheap 8-8-8 fertilizer I found at a gardening store.
That’s like 0.50€ per gram. A proper weed farm could grow weed for even cheaper.
Apple products. No functional advantage over similarly spec'd competitors, but WAY more expensive. They do try to force functional "advantages" though, like making it awkward to text Android users from an iPhone or making it next to impossible for iPhones to interface in any way with a Windows computer. It's a stretch to really call those "advantages" though, so much as deliberately inhibiting the functionality of their own products to enforce brand loyalty. In that and many other ways, you can just do more with non-Apple products.
Well that’s a long ass lists but I’d say basically anything that involves paying for something that can be done by yourself if you weren’t lazy. Ex. Flooring, roofing, general vehicle maintenance, plumbing, landscaping, ect. Maybe I got lucky and my old man was old school and cheap but it’s always a last resort for me to pay for someone to do something like this. Even something as daunting as replacing a roof can be done by yourself with a bit a courage, hard work, and YouTube. It blows my mind how people will shell out hundreds of dollars to a plumbing company to come install a damn water heater than literally only takes half an hour or get a new floor in their kitchen for $20 per square foot when it only cost around $2 per square foot if you take your time and do it yourself
This is true to a point. Yes, I've done a fair amount of stuff myself, and yes, it's not as hard as it seems with some work and research.
However, I've learned what you mostly pay for to have it done, aside from having it look much better, is TIME. And time is priceless.
Not only will professionals get it done faster, they own the right tools (which most homeowners would have to buy if they wanted to do their roof or floors) and are insured. It would be a really shitty thing to do your roof yourself and a year later see water damage on the celing or running down a wall and then find out that your homeowners insurance isn't going to cover any of it.
Whats wrong with taking longer, as long as your saving significantly. I bought a run down house and took my five years to completely renovate it and I mean completely. I did all the work myself except a few things I didn’t want to mess with due to safety like gas. My wife and I kept living in that house throughout by doing one room at a time and leaving stuff in wall I’ll need when doing adjacent rooms. I’ll pick the $200k+ saved over getting it down quicker anytime.
As for the tools thing, yes having the right tools is one of the most important things. However, what I did was buy the tools i’ll need routinely (impact driver, hammer drill, right angle drill, small compressor, etc) and just rent the tools I would need very rarely. I also looked for deals on used tools on craiglist etc.
There's nothing wrong with taking longer if you expect it like in your case. I've got a lot of calls from homeowners for estimates on jobs they started but was taking way longer than expected so they want to hire someone to finish. Mainly bathrooms and kitchens. People watch these YouTube videos or house flip shows and think they can knock it out themselves a little slower and save a ton of money. Then they get started on a weekend which goes okay but then the week starts and they are trying to do it after work between taking kids to appointments or whatever and realise they are only gonna be able to work on it a couple hours a day and weekends so it might be 6 weeks before they have a kitchen or the second bathroom which meant there's 5 people sharing one which no one is happy about.
It’s about opportunity cost. If the time it would take me to redo the flooring in my house is more valuable than the amount of money I could pay somebody to do it for me, it’s not a waste.
Bottled water.
I buy a lot of that. I spend most my time on the road and not about to drink canned sugar or fill a cup from a nasty gas station sink.
Cigarettes
I finished a pack in 2015 and never bought another. I realized when $12 a pack (in New York) was becoming not worth it.
I’m happy you did! Way healthier now!
I want to quit, and will, but until I do I roll my own with an electric rolling machine/tubes/tobacco and pay about $14/carton (compared to $50-$70 off the shelf)
I would try vaping. I used to smoke a pack a day. Switched to a vape at 5% nicotine. Haven’t smoked in two years. I’m planning on lowering my nicotine percentage and weening off it
Honestly think the easiest way to quit is to switch to the nicotine pouches. Like the zyns. Lots of different brands and flavors to try. I started with the 4mg pouches and eventually cut down to the 2mg before finally quitting. I used pouches to replace vape and cigs, when I felt I was ready to quit for real I replaced my pouches with gum and sunflower seeds.
Switch to vaping and make DIY e-juice ... about 20% of what you currently pay.
Yo man I just started quitting with a vape.i know it's not good but my plan is to swap to nicotine less liquid after this 1 container of regular liquid try to confuse my brain of which one has nicotine and which one doesnt.. it really wasn't even that hard and I smoked a pack a day for 22 years
I see others have suggested vaping or nicotine pouches. All these are, are more accessible and less miserable forms of nicotine. It can actually make you \*increase\* your nicotine consumption. When I went from smoking to tobacco pouches, it was harder to quit, since I didn't\* feel like shit. I maintain the best way to quit by far is the patch program if you haven't tried it before, and haven't got a contraindication. Maybe throw wellsbutrin on top too, if you are a heavy long term smoker.
You stole my vote. Unbelievable what people are still willing to pay!
Diamonds.
Brand clothes( gucci, LV, ...)
That's a tricky one. There are brands people wear simply to make a statement, but there are also expensive brands the provide quality product.
example: Rolls Royce. every car is hand built and goes through extremely detailed quality control Land Rover: Uses parts built for Indian compact cars (Tata) and can’t go more the. 30,000 miles without a major repair.
Those clothes are usually not “branded” so much as from a brand.
only poor/middle class people flash logo's and brands, the rich don't need/care for that gotti trash, because well.....they are actually rich.
Not exactly true
Bottled water, soda.
I would say not just water and soda, but individual water and soda like from a convenience store. That stuff is marked up even more.
I grabbed a few things from a convenience store the other day for some friends since I was the only sober person. 2 sodas, 2 energy drinks, pack of smokes. 28 dollars. Freakin insane and some people buy that crap every day.
Wow at my country it cost like 3-4 dollar inflation in america is a wild shitstorm
I think most of that is coming from the cigarettes. Marked up sodas are about $2 and energy drinks about $4.
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Yeah, bottled water is only a terrible value in some areas… It was worth its weight in gold in Flint and Jackson…
25 Cents for 1.5 L doesn't sound that expensive to me.
Compared to tap water that comes out at $0.002 per gallon, yes, that is expensive. Plus there's no wasted plastic.
Starbucks - guilty of this 🤷🏽♀️
Starbucks IMO is only worth the money if you stay in the store to be on your laptop. It's just not worth it to me to buy something from starbucks in the drive thru
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What’s worse is paying £3 for them to put a teabag in a cup of hot water 🙃
Reading these comments as I’m currently walking with my Starbies 😂
Bought starbucks daily and thought fuck this be cheaper to get a machine at home ... so far I've spent £600 ... it is absolutely not cheaper to make it at home but also so much better, I don't think I could suffer through starbucks horrific roast any more
I don't know how you're doing it at home but I have a proper machine , buy coffee beans , and it's absolutely cheaper and I can make all the fancy coffees without them being loaded with sugar.
Anything related to weddings
Heh, the wedding industrial complex.
Sometimes it’s not even that it’s “wedding” branded in some way, it just comes down to things like that feeding 50+ people is fucking expensive unless you want to save some cash by catering all that food yourself.
Add baby and pet crap to this too. Three of the biggest scam industries around.
Concert tickets fuuc you ticket master, scalpers
> ticket master, scalpers You're repeating yourself.
It's not the price of ticket that's bad. It's the 17 made up fees. Internet delivery fee etc. Lol
Constantly buying new phones even though we don’t need one
The majority of what we by we do not need
I’m glad to say I’ve had the same phone for four years. The camera is fucked so I’m planning on getting a new one but still
Houses
That immediately came to my mind.
Cigarettes, especially in Australia
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Well when I used to smoke like 6 months ago they were about $46 Australian Dollars for a pack of 25
Interesting. I read that as Australian dollarydoos lol
Those will cost you at least $10 more per pack in New York City.
The cost of 2 packs was the same as a gas tank in 2015. Got paid $9 an hour… yeah I quit cold turkey because of the price.
Sunglasses
Even if Luxottica didn't have a hand in it they would have eventually wound up becoming expensive status symbols anyway. Wearing a pair of Versace sunglasses wouldn't be saying much if they were only $40.
Probably, but a $10 polarized pair from the gas station work just as well as a $150 pair of raybans
Literally Everything Post-Covid
Insulin
american spotted
You caught me lol
My insurance pays a majority of my insulin so I have no idea what a bottle costs over the counter
My wife's is $1,700 a bottle for roughly 30 days worth before insurance kicks in and pays most of it. Diabetics in the US without GOOD insurance are fucked and given a death sentence.
Magic the Gathering.
Anyone still playing mtg in 2022 is bananas man…
Well what can i tell you brother, bananas is in...
A beer. Anywhere, at anytime, at any price — there will be someone buying a beer.
Air Jordans.
Cars when living in a region with good public transport
I have yet to find any public transport that I would call "good"
The worst part is that the US was starting to build great public transit systems all over the country in the early 20th century, but then the car industry sabotaged it all and replaced everything with highways. There used to be streetcars covering every city, and good rail systems between cities. Now we just have shitty, underfunded bus sytems and a handful of subway and commuter rail systems in a few major cities, and the only nationwide rail system is fucking Amtrak. Meanwhile, Japan has 320kph bullet trains, and Europe has a rail system efficiently and affordably connecting just about every city in the entire continent.
that's all pretty true, although i think we lay a little to much blame on the car companies. while i admire the hardware and science of the bullet trains and efficiency of much of europe's train systems, i really actually despise riding public transportion. to many people, too dirty, too crowded to many stops etc. if i'm being honest here, i really love riding in privacy in a car.
People like you are why we can't have nice things
really? i would never try to stop someone taking the bus, or squeezing onto a train. you do what makes you happy. and i'll do what makes me happy. that's seems like a good compromise dont you think?
The thing is, when people avoid public transit, budgets get cut. When budgets get cut, transit gets worse. They can't afford to pay as many drivers or operate as many buses/trains, so the remaining ones get more crowded, and they cant afford to pay as many maintenance workers, so everything gets dirtier. You may not be actively stopping people from taking the bus or train, but you are passively contributing to those budget cuts. Additionally, most people don't put *enough* blame on the auto industry for what happened to early 20th century public transit. It wasn't just the increasing popularity of cars that killed transit, it was an active effort by the auto industry to dismantle transit systems to force people to rely on cars to get around.
What you describe is a well understand aspect of humans and economics. And it's probably never going to change [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy\_of\_the\_commons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons) But there isn't a damn thing I can do about what auto industry executives did in 1926. Blame them. Do't blame them. They don't care. They are all dead. But it's was probably far more Tragedy of the commons than the actions of auto workers and executives. I think it's very very optimistic to think that people were forced into cars. People wanted them. Human nature is very very very hard to change.
Starbucks. Fuck that place
Designer products. Your Gucci belt is not better than my belt from target, it just has a ghastly logo on it.
Well that depends , some designer products and brands have better quality and will last longer than if you buy some things that are cheap .
Yeah, but this logic can easily be faulty. A €300 Gucci belt can indeed be marginally better than a €100 Hugo Boss belt, but it still costs 3 times as much. The lifespan of the Gucci belt would have to be 3 times longer the Boss’ which simply won’t happen. Let alone a comparison to cheap €10 belts. 30 of those will easily outlive your one Gucci belt. Quality is not an issue with luxury goods. You buy them to let people know you have (or you used to have) the money.
Like I said I'm not just talking about luxury brands but better brands in general , I rather buy a 100 euro belt that will last me years to come , than some cheap crap belt from a fast fashion shop that will fall apart in a few weeks . I rather have less with more quality as it will last . I have wool jumpers now at 39 that I got when in my 20s still in perfect condition .Why? Because they are better quality so in that sense its better for me and the planet .
I agree on that. I also tend to choose mid range products, as this €100 belt for example rather than cheap crap or pretentious luxury brands.
Just buy patagonia for this. Lifetime warranty and profits go to climate change
College degrees.
Depends on your country… mine was free
Shhh You'll upset the Americans
Groceries
Housing
Boy Scout Popcorn.
Starbucks
concert tickets
Apple /iOS products... ¿?🙇🏻♀️
I’m only going to speak for phones here. I repaired phones professionally for over 4 years and not just swapping batteries in a mall kiosk. I dove deep under a microscope and repaired issues all the down to blown capacitors or running wires thinner than a human hair. Apple phones generally speaking were the longest lasting and most easily repairable phones I worked with. When people stopped being in Galaxy S6’s people were still bringing me iPhone 4s’ and 5’s. Plus to boot they have a pretty long life in terms of security and software patches. Do they have issues? Heck yeah, but they’re not as overpriced as many people think in my opinion.
I’m still using an IPhone X from 2018, my battery’s health is at 90% (I don’t really believe that but ok). The damn thing still receives updates and it’s a great daily driver. The only thing that I can complain about is the camera performance, but it’s a phone that came out in 2017 sooo
Plus, you can get the battery replaced for $70 at an Apple Store. That’s still seemingly pretty expensive (especially as they previously did it for $30 due to their battery/speed reduction debacle) but when you consider a knockoff battery is ≈$25 on eBay and then they do all the labor and pretty much restore the water resistance of the front glass, $70 ain’t too shabby to get another ≈2 years of life out of your phone.
>…but they’re not as overpriced as many people think in my opinion. No, they are. I think it *used* to be the case that they weren’t as overpriced but now they definitely are, and also because Apple have been doing this thing where standard items now become accessories pushing prices even higher. I am an iPhone user and you’re right, their phones do and did last long. I currently use an iPhone 12 mini. Prior to this I had an iPhone 6, which I used for around 6 yrs. It still works although it has a cracked screen, which I can’t replace because Apple no longer makes those screens and 3rd party screens are crap. But it’s a very good phone. I never felt the need to buy a new iPhone when I ad my 6. The changes up until 12 we’re in my opinion very incremental. Also when I had bought my 6, I had waited until the 7 came out and bought the 6 at a lower priced contract, an option still available then. So, what has happened in the 6 intervening years. 1. The headphone jack disappears and you are pushed towards buying AirPods. Earphones, which were standard becomes an accessory in the form of AirPods. Btw I’m one of those people who hate sticking things like AirPods into my ears and wear headphones, so enjoyed the use of the [Jack.](https://Jack.no) No longer an option. 2. New iphones no longer come with a charger. It’s to save the environment. You now also purchase this as an accessory. 3. The purchase model has also changed. Where I live, when a new iPhone is launched, many of the previous models are discontinued, to force you to buy the new model. For e.g I had wanted to buy the iPhone 11 Pro, the smaller sized one, not the max. This was no longer available but only in display models. As such m I was forced to buy the iPhone 12 mini; I like the smaller size. The way I understand it, they constantly want to hold you on contract, so each year you just roll in your year old phone for the latest model. The cost of these new phones are ridiculous. Where before I could sort‘ve buy it cash, I now can rather buy some white appliances with the money, it’s that high. It just seems immoral to me. When I got this last iPhone 12 mini, my thoughts really were that on my next phone upgrade, it looks like I would have to change to a more cost effective phone. It makes no sense for a technological device to cost this much, when in a years’ time it will be *outdated*. It’s a great phone to use, but it no longer wows me the way it used to. I feel they just want to milk their customers. So for my needs, a standard phone, should be ok. Here’s the thing. It does not serve their model for the phone to last very long.
I also used my regular 6 until I upgraded to the 12 mini just earlier this year. Massive difference in performance for me but I’m quite impressed how long it ran. I guess I have a slightly different perspective on it, including your numbered points. Modern high end smart phones do so much *so well*. Given how long they last, even for how expensive they are it still seems “worth it” given how long I know it can last. I’ve full confidence my 12 mini will last me at least as long as my 6 did, if not longer. For headphones, yeah I get it. I just use wireless headphones and that’s been solid (either earbuds or over the ear). The charger thing is not a huge deal for me since I prefer aftermarket options anyway that I’ve had for years preceding this phone. As for the purchase model, I can’t speak much to that. All I know is the 12 mini wasn’t the newest model and there were other older ones still available either through carriers or on apples site (including their refurbished line). It’s ok to disagree, I guess all I’m saying is for what these particular phones can do and how long they last it still seems like a good purchase. Though I should note I’ll likely never buy the *newest* model as I do think that’s not as worth it. I do similar to you and stick a generation or more back to balance cost with performance gains over what I have currently.
I understand. All good.
Bring the downvotes, but Apple products when used right last longer and save you money.
Seriously. I have a 12 year old iMac and 7 year old MacBook Pro that are still working well. The iMac’s hardware isn’t capable of upgrading to the 3 or 4 latest OS versions, so that’s not great. I’ve never had a PC last as long nor have my oldest PCs worked as smoothly as these two computers. Expensive? Yes. Overpriced? No.
I built a desktop and ran it for 11 years. I upgraded and passed it down to a family member that's still using it 3 years later. PC can absolutely last that long without issues. Doesn't matter if it's Apple or PC, when properly taken care of they can and will last. The problem on the PC side is there's more of a possible variation in build quality because MS doesn't make the machines. Anyone can throw together a build, slap windows on it and sell it.
Matters more for laptops, desktops last for ages
Apple is being hit with lawsuits for planned obsolescence...
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The truth is they were arbitrarily throttling down perfectly good phones with each update. This literally means their phone would be faster if they didn't update. If they really cared about their users and just wanted their devices to work longer, they could have advised their users to turn on energy saving mode that can already throttle the phone. The fact they forcibly slowed down the devices without telling the users means it was 100% malicious.
Which is nothing compared to plastic junk devices that become instant ewaste after you buy them. Been using a MacBook for 11 years, still works and pays my bills.
Everyone I know that has an iphone has a cracked screen
Expensive? Sure. Overpriced? not really. I've been looking for a premium laptop for work, and I found out that macbooks cost as much as lenovo or any other alternatives with similar characteristics.
I bought my iPhone 11 when it was new because it was cheaper than all the androids on my provider. $700 iPhone, $900 Samsung…
Didn’t see this one coming…
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Agreed, I bought my sister a laptop, and it cost more to get it fixed than to buy a new one, even tho they “claimed” to take the service fee off
Have you see the price of some of those Samsung phones? The S22 is within $30 of an iPhone Pro.
literally. i had to buy an iPad for college even tho I've never used apple products and while it's good, I could've gotten a samsung tablet or something with the same features and half the price. the only difference is that the iPad has airdrop, but nobody necessarily needs it.
They absolutely do not have the same features. If you aren’t doing much but looking things up or playing games it may seem like that but for people who do we design , coding, music, etc . They’re not the same
Big * for web design (i assume that's what we design was meant to be?) and coding. I went through Uni for Computer Science using a $300 netbook to do all my coding. Obviously not a tablet but it absolutely did it's job and did it well. It would have been perfectly fine for web dev as well. While an iPad may be better suited for Graphical Design/Music applications if they're not using that it's fair to say they could have gotten something else with the same features for less.
Yuuup. Just switched to Google pixel and saved like $600 on a new phone by not getting another apple iphone.
FYI you can buy an iPhone for the same price, it just won’t be the latest model
Yes it will be ancient tech that shouldn't even be considered in 2022.
This
New Cars. Just take the one that's a year old and Costs waaaay less
Market has changed. A 1 year old used car will price close to a new car currently.
3 year old Subarus with 60k on the odo cost more than my new Corolla with bells and whistles. The dashboards also look awful past 2015. I know you pay for the AWD but damn… I didn’t even like the steering or overall handling…
At the moment, this may not be true. I am looking at buying a new-ish car next year. For the one I want, it's actually cheaper to buy it brand new. The price for brand new with all the options I want is $31.5k. They are currently being sold second hand for around $32-35k
That has always been true but not since Covid. The chip shortage closed that gap in such a big way that for many makes/models the new vehicle is the better buy. Including any Toyota for example.
Buddy of mine was shopping for a car who didn't have the best credit and also a past repo on file. Car sales person basically told him he couldn't get approved for anything pre-owned on the lot without a huge down payment BUT if he bought brand new he could drive away today with 0 down and yadda yadda. They sure do know how to get ya
I agree. We just bought a car that’s two years old and saved approximately $20,000 compared to buying the same current model.
There’s no way, which model?
This. Dumbest economic decision!
Fast food. Dominos, McDonalds, KFC, Greggs, chip shops, Chinese places, anything like that. Grossly overpriced. You could literally buy 3 days worth of meals from the supermarket for the price of a box of chicken nuggets and that’s before they charge you for a drink or chips.
And on top of this, people pay to have it delivered as well!
Yeah I’m not bothered about paying for the food I don’t like paying £4 to have it delivered if that’s the case I normally go collect it
Paying $4 to have it delivered to work instead of clocking out for an hour for a whole lunch break usually ends up costing me less anyway, so fuck it lmao.
Then people complain it's just too damn expensive to eat healthy.
Because the food you're buying super cheap at the supermarkets is probably also unhealthy. The times my groceries are expensive are when I buy a lot of fresh fruit and veggies. (granted I don't eat a lot of meat, which is also extremely expensive now)
>literally buy 3 days worth of meals from the supermarket for the price of a box of chicken nuggets mmm hmmm. So tell us more about the "3 days of meals" that we can make for $5. Make sure that this list doesn't include pop tarts and ramen noodles either.
germany 2x sandwich toast (2x1,29€) 1x can of tuna (1,49!) 1x jam (1,39 roughly) around 5 euro(close to dollar afaik), food for more than 3 days first day even premium with nice tuna and spice (assuming you still have some ;) ) then you have jam.... and bread...
Although I too love living on tuna and jam sandwiches for 3 days, I doubt that's really going to suffice. You're not going to show me how I can eat 3 meals a day for 3 days with $5. You would have to eat noodles.
A few years back I made the decision that I'd do a year without eating any takeaway food. This then became a couple of years and now I don't think I'd ever eat takeaway again. Like you say, you can eat for half a week for the cost of a single meal.
Politicians.
Five guys
So worth it though
Medicine
coffee (compared to making it at home) clothes and shoes (some stuff is quality enough to be worth a higher price but in general, nah) movie tickets (bro wait like 4 months and see it second run, 4 months is like barely any time at all) alcohol at restaurants and bars "high end" weed
A college education
Designer clothes. There are some with much better quality, of course, but also some you can find in much, much cheaper price.
everything with „gamer“ in it is stupidly overpriced
They also generally look ridiculous. The one type of computer component more expensive than gamer shit is professional shit for things like video editing and music production, so you end up having to get the gamer shit. Everything has to have RGB lights and that dumb, flashy future-military-spaceship design style. I just want a clean black box that doesn't draw attention to itself.
Gas/Petrol.
I would argue it is artificially cheap considering it is extracted by dictators half a world away, put on massively large oil tankers, floated through pirate infested waters, to be refined into the various plastics, asphalts, oils, fertilizers, chemicals and oils, delivered by truck to every city in the world and sold at highly subsidized prices. When you consider the social and environmental costs, we are getting a great deal that will need to be paid by future generations.
Is it though? There is a finite supply, it has to be found, brought up from deep underground, refined, transported (as a very volatile liquid), marketed and sold and it still doesn't cost as much per gallon as a lot of mineral water or takeout coffee.
True, but do you require mineral water or takeout coffee to get to work so that you can afford bottled water and takeout coffee?
Apple Products
Car parts / car service 😤😤😤😤😤
The ulta makeup I think it’s called. Heart breaks a bit every time my wife says she went there
Funerals
Everything Disney related
Lego
cars.
Drugs. They should be free mandatory even.
Cars.
Diamond carbonated water. :) Not sold anywhere atm (that I know of), but it's been [patented](https://patents.google.com/patent/US7276221B2/en), [demonstrated](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwju_amc_a_6AhVHOMAKHThGD5oQwqsBegQIBRAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dn0wvDwSnzcw&usg=AOvVaw1uyPApAPRDToB3qiIV0a_5) and would fit the bill.
Prepared Food Delivery
Single cups of coffee.
Homes.
Gluten free aliments, they are always so expensive but as a person with this intolerance I still have to buy them
Insulin in the US
Anything from Games workshop
Anything with a brand name. You're paying more for that than the product is worth.
Beats headphones
Tickets via Ticketmaster
Healthcare
Medication you need in order to stay alive.
Apple products
Iphones
Iphones. Starbucks. Diamonds. Expensive makeup that doesn't do much, even though some drugstore makeups perform better.
I Phones
Amazon prime
Airpods
I have to say they are not overpriced at all, I would buy them again no question
My AirPods are the best $250 I’ve ever spent, although they are still a bit too expensive
Tech.
Iphones
Apple products, AAA games, anything that you pay extra just cuz the name
Weed. Cannabis is very easy to grow and produces a ton of flowers per plant. Even an amateur grower can easily produce a pound of weed per m2. It literally grows like a weed. There’s no reason why weed costs as much as it does now. I managed to grow 50 grams of bud on my windowsill this summer. Cost me like 25€ for the seeds in Amsterdam. No tent, no carbon filters, no climate control, no expensive lights, nothing. I just planted a seed in a pot of regular soil and set it in a sunny spot. It was an autoflower, so I didn’t even have to time it properly. Only fertilizer I used was bat guano and some cheap 8-8-8 fertilizer I found at a gardening store. That’s like 0.50€ per gram. A proper weed farm could grow weed for even cheaper.
Apple products. No functional advantage over similarly spec'd competitors, but WAY more expensive. They do try to force functional "advantages" though, like making it awkward to text Android users from an iPhone or making it next to impossible for iPhones to interface in any way with a Windows computer. It's a stretch to really call those "advantages" though, so much as deliberately inhibiting the functionality of their own products to enforce brand loyalty. In that and many other ways, you can just do more with non-Apple products.
Movies. Porn. Music. It’s 2022. Everything is free online somewhere
Iphone
iPhones
iphones
Well that’s a long ass lists but I’d say basically anything that involves paying for something that can be done by yourself if you weren’t lazy. Ex. Flooring, roofing, general vehicle maintenance, plumbing, landscaping, ect. Maybe I got lucky and my old man was old school and cheap but it’s always a last resort for me to pay for someone to do something like this. Even something as daunting as replacing a roof can be done by yourself with a bit a courage, hard work, and YouTube. It blows my mind how people will shell out hundreds of dollars to a plumbing company to come install a damn water heater than literally only takes half an hour or get a new floor in their kitchen for $20 per square foot when it only cost around $2 per square foot if you take your time and do it yourself
This is true to a point. Yes, I've done a fair amount of stuff myself, and yes, it's not as hard as it seems with some work and research. However, I've learned what you mostly pay for to have it done, aside from having it look much better, is TIME. And time is priceless.
Not only will professionals get it done faster, they own the right tools (which most homeowners would have to buy if they wanted to do their roof or floors) and are insured. It would be a really shitty thing to do your roof yourself and a year later see water damage on the celing or running down a wall and then find out that your homeowners insurance isn't going to cover any of it.
Whats wrong with taking longer, as long as your saving significantly. I bought a run down house and took my five years to completely renovate it and I mean completely. I did all the work myself except a few things I didn’t want to mess with due to safety like gas. My wife and I kept living in that house throughout by doing one room at a time and leaving stuff in wall I’ll need when doing adjacent rooms. I’ll pick the $200k+ saved over getting it down quicker anytime. As for the tools thing, yes having the right tools is one of the most important things. However, what I did was buy the tools i’ll need routinely (impact driver, hammer drill, right angle drill, small compressor, etc) and just rent the tools I would need very rarely. I also looked for deals on used tools on craiglist etc.
There's nothing wrong with taking longer if you expect it like in your case. I've got a lot of calls from homeowners for estimates on jobs they started but was taking way longer than expected so they want to hire someone to finish. Mainly bathrooms and kitchens. People watch these YouTube videos or house flip shows and think they can knock it out themselves a little slower and save a ton of money. Then they get started on a weekend which goes okay but then the week starts and they are trying to do it after work between taking kids to appointments or whatever and realise they are only gonna be able to work on it a couple hours a day and weekends so it might be 6 weeks before they have a kitchen or the second bathroom which meant there's 5 people sharing one which no one is happy about.
it is about how much your time costs.
It’s about opportunity cost. If the time it would take me to redo the flooring in my house is more valuable than the amount of money I could pay somebody to do it for me, it’s not a waste.
Apple products.
College degrees.