sucks. my strawberries i started years ago are pretty dope. but the harvest is inconsistent every year, due to weather. some years I get a lot, some years I get virtually none.
I'm so sick of dummies thinking they are going to survive the collapse of society or prevent it buy planting a vegetable garden.
And yet I see someone posting their anxiety cope on here once a week, at least. Asking for advice how to become a homesteader on their 1/4 acre lot in a city/suburb. They write a 1000 word essay on the topic, asking of r 'advice' how to learn a lifetime of veggie growing experience into a few sentences so that they can be coming 'self sufficient'.
Grow plants if you want, for fun. But stop with the prepper bullshit. Stop being an paranoid egotistical idiot. If society collapses, you are fucked and there is shit you can do about it. You are not the protagonist of a apocalyptic movie, sorry to inform you. You are an extra whose only purpose in the story is to die or already be dead in the background of the shot.
people won't go on pre-paid service because of the social stigma of it being for 'poor people'
I've been on a 20-25$ cell plan my entire adult life... but it's Boost, and people think it is 'ghetto' due to the fact Boost was originaly marketed as 'urban' cell phone company. It's insane. I even got my mom to switch over to it when she retired to save money. but my sister found out and was RIPSHIT i put my mom on a 'phone plan for black people'... because she's racist AF, and she took my mom off the plan and put her back on a $100 Verizon plan again... and bought her a fancy iphone she had no clue how to use, because 'successful people use iPhones, poor losers use Android phones'.
my plan on Verizon would be like 80 bucks a month. a lot of people take pride in throwing away money because it makes them feel they are 'not poor'. and marketing loves them.
In other news, my nephew turned 18, wanted to get off the family plan and get his own phone and plan, and wanted Boost w/android because it's cheap and he can easily afford it. She was furious with him and basically told him he can't do it, because she'd lose the ability to track him via his iphone, which is precisely why he wants to get rid of being on the family plan... but she tells him he can't do it because 'people won't respect him' if he has an android and not using Verizon.
people buy what they want to buy. auto-makers respond to demand. the sales numbers over the last few decade show people overwhelmingly prefer SUVs and trucks to traditional passenger sedans or vans.
folks have decided they prefer larger and more expensive vehicles, and systematically do not purchase smaller or cheaper vehicles.
I'm the only person I know who owns a small sedan. everyone else has mid-large SUVs and trucks. they endlessly complain the cars are too large, and too expensive to drive... but to refuse to purchase anything smaller or cheaper. if you point out you can get a loaded civic for 30K that does 40mpg+, and costs $30-40 to fill up, or similar, they basically start telling you how 'tiny' those cars are and they couldn't possible ever drive one because it's 'not safe' and 'doesn't have enough space'. when they buy a new car, they buy a 50K+ SUV or truck that gets 25mpg or less, and often complain they wish they'd been able to purchase a larger vehicle but it cost too much.
nobody is forcing anyone to purchase these cars. they choose to do it. lots of wonderful are still on the market, but folks do not want to buy them, large sedans have basically disappeared apart from luxury brands.
the RAV4 sells double the units of the corolla now. the last time they sold equal units was 2015, a decade ago. in 2005, the corolla had 4x the sales of the RAV5. in another decade, Toyota likely won't even make the Corolla anymore because the sales numbers are falling year over year to the point in 2035 the rav4 will sell 4x the Corolla.
personally I don't see any value to buying buying a large suv/truck, but most folks do.
the ones around me have about 50 million in the bank, but yeah would whine a movie ticket is too much. but they have no problem flying to europe every other month.
the smartphone space has way more competition and their market is literally everyone on the planet. there are 6 billion smart phone buyers.
the vast vast majority of whom, do not need the power in most phones. there is no demand for improving phones, they have peaked. Phones are a commodity at this point, like your average desktop/laptop.
sucks. my strawberries i started years ago are pretty dope. but the harvest is inconsistent every year, due to weather. some years I get a lot, some years I get virtually none.