I think the “invisible hand of the market” swats more people than it helps.

People in the US scream about inflation but many of them have no idea how bad it is in other countries. Places where food products are sparse or imported are extremely expensive. There’s not that much stuff we don’t produce or grow in the US.

Grocery prices can vary widely depending on location. The absolute cheapest Walmart ground beef I can get is $4.50 per pound and milk is $3.62 a gallon. Pasta is a $1 pound and eggs are relatively cheap here. Produce has gone through the roof.

I thought that was an exchange between Nietzsche and God, or it used to be. Anyway, I was unaware that the double low-9 quotation mark was even a thing so thanks for that.

65 Male Pacific NW

Never saw Pretty in Pink but enjoyed Molly Ringworm in The Breakfast Club. I also have a Kindle and am on the 3rd book in the Silo series. The other thing about e-books is that even bestsellers aren’t tracked by anyone. There are nowhere near as many books on various sites as there are movies and TV shows, but you can still find just about anything.

I’m disabled and on a fixed income and there’s no way I can afford 4 or 5 streaming services. I don’t even watch that much other than an occasional series like Silo and a movie once in a while. I think a lot more stuff is tracked now than it used to be(I even got hit for an older game) and it’s just not worth it to try without a VPN.

Considering I got 3 years worth at about $1.50 a month, I get more than enough content every month to make the cost worthwhile. I don’t use it much for privacy but I use it a lot to access movies and such.

20 some years and I’m still doing it that way, except that I use Plex so I can watch stuff on the TV. I use Prowlarr once in a great while if I’m having a hard time finding something but I don’t DL anywhere near as much as I used to.

I remember sitting there in front of a TRS-80 Model 1 computer, copying lines of code out of a Byte magazine; not knowing exactly what I was doing but thinking it was the coolest thing in the world.

I’m 65, so practically everybody online seems young to me