Sure, the occasional customer gets into a cycle for credit card debt and ends up paying big interest. That’s not where credit card companies make their money though. There’s a fee for the merchant to process each transaction, that’s the main revenue source. Then if we’re talking about a store card, they get the ability to track your purchases everywhere you use that card, and use that info to do better marketing, merchandising, and just generally get better at selling people stuff. It’s nice to make a buck when people buy things from your store, but it’s even nicer if you can make a buck when people shop elsewhere too.

Common to get a big discount on the first purchase. That way it looks something like “just take 5 minutes to sign up here and you’ll get $30 off your purchase today”. I feel bad for the staff that have to push it, which gets me frustrated because I just want to buy my things and go, so I end up being rude to them.

I think part of the solution is to add some regulation that say that you should be able to close the account in the same way you open it. Let me sign up, get the $30 discount, pay the bill, close the account, and have them delete my personal information so I can do it over again next time. Few people doing that and it won’t be worth the effort for business to process everything.

There’s going to be some variance depending on how a person tends to listen to their music. I think the decline of CDs correlates pretty well with digital options being available, and people making the switch. There’s always going to be people at the head of the pack using the new thing and people that want to save costs by keeping what they’ve got. The accessory market affects that too, there was overlap when people would have portable digital music players, but still use optical disks for their home stereo and vehicles. But as manufacturers came out with solutions like iPod docks or Bluetooth streaming the digital devices were able to push out the physical media.

Looking for commercial type products and checking the website for parts/manuals can go a long way. Doesn’t always guarantee that those parts will still be available in a decade or two, but it shows the company at least making an effort to support those products. You’re paying up front though, that commercial product can be 5-10x the cost of the equivalent consumer model. Heck, sometimes people still buy those consumer models because it’s a lot easier to justify a $100-$200 price tag every, even if you expect to replace it every few years than $1000+ up front.

This is the real answer to me. Often, the premium version is still out there but people go for the budget version anyway. That’s not necessarily a bad thing though. When we can furnish a whole room for what a couple pieces used to cost, that’s a win for a lot of people even if some of those items wear out prematurely. It also depends if we’re talking about a mostly mechanical and utilitarian item, vs something that relies on modern software ecosystems. Toasters haven’t changed much in 40 years, but a 10 year old cell phone is pretty much useless, possibly not working at all with current network technology. Durability is less important when an item becomes technologically obsolete anyway.

I heard there was a process for requesting additional data, but you have to actually pay for the 5 users and they’ll bump it a few TB every couple months on request. That’s from people reporting their experience with support, so it might not be totally consistent.

I kind of get it though, people hear “unlimited storage” and then don’t even make an effort to be efficient with that space, and just want to keep everything forever. There’s a real cost to that storage, and it’s higher than many think since it’s not just a single HDD like many would have sitting on their desk but a series of arrays/pools and all the related systems to ensure reliability and uptime. They probably did some calculation where 99% of users would be profitable even with their “unlimited storage” and eating it on the other 1% was a reasonable advertising cost. Over time that calculation changed and they had to update the service.

Presumably it was GSuite/Google Workspace. While they advertised unlimited storage if you paid for 5 accounts, it wasn’t really enforced so you could pay something like $20/month and get unlimited storage on G-drive. There was a daily cap on how much data can be moved, but that’s fine for hosting incremental backups like many that took advantage.

Hmm…. I’ve never heard about those kinds of limits here. It’s not too uncommon for 3-5 people to split a house(which may or may not actually have 3-5 legal bedrooms) around here, though the trend seems to be splitting those houses into 2-3 legal suites, each of which might have multiple bedrooms.

I don’t think a medallion system is a solution though, as I understand that was brought in to artificially lower supply and increase revenue for the cab companies by limiting the number available. I do like the idea of more proactive enforcement of regulations to ensure that housing is kept in reasonable repair, but that can also increase prices since I’d venture most people put up with poor quality rentals due to them being the lowest cost; at least in terms of rent, though utility costs can outweigh that. If there was safe, clean, and affordable housing available then people trying to market sub-standard units wouldn’t get renters and would be forced to either upgrade the unit or sell.

The other thing I didn’t think of is renting makes it a lot simpler to share accommodations. A group of 2-4 people can split the rent on a property that none of them would qualify for individually.

Agreed that the current situation parallels a lot of industries in that it’s concentrating wealth in the hands of those that are already ahead and it’s difficult for new people to become part of that system. Personally, I think the solution for any of these essential goods/services is crown corporations, which creates a standard of service that private industry has to compete with instead of being able to collude to maximize margins.

I’ve heard that the regulatory environment had a big impact on some places. Something like there were a bunch of subsidies/incentives to invest in the real estate aspect of malls. When those incentives dried up, the increased operating costs got passed on to tenants, some of which couldn’t afford the increase. Closing shops make the mall less attractive for customers, which reduces sales at the remaining shops, some of which end up closing down, and the whole thing spirals into the situation we have now.

Not for everybody, but I’ve heard reasonable advice of getting the mortgage at a longer amortization period, then making extra payments. When I was looking it was typical to be allowed to increase the payment by 10-20% or to make additional payments up to 10-20% of the initial loan amount each year without penalty. That’s enough to potentially be paying it off in under 10 years without penalty(which is often in the range of 3 months simple interest, so still worthwhile if you unexpectedly come in to some money), but also gives you the flexibility of going back to the minimum payments if your financial situation changes.

Renting does make it cheaper/simpler to change accommodations though. Think things like starting a family and wanting to scale the household up from just two people to adding children and down again when those children move out. Renting makes it simpler to move closer to work, public transportation, schools, Etc. as a persons needs change. On the other hand, there’s also a lot of financial benefits to living in your own home: grants/rebates available for homeowners, not rental properties, being able to save costs by doing your own maintenance/renovations, etc…

That’s a bit of a stretch since most residential ovens also have a range on top, so the power requirements are to cover multiple elements, not the oven alone. It’s probably actually less efficient, but still lower energy because you’re heating a smaller cavity.

Because it’s not just a convection oven that’s needed, it’s also venting the moisture that comes off the product being cooked. It also needs to be powerful enough to keep the temperature up while that moist air gets exchanged. That’s a lot easier with a small cavity like an air-fryer than a regular sized oven. Commercial combi-ovens can do the same thing, and maybe there’s some high end consumer models available, but it’s a lot easier on the pocketbook to get an air fryer than a full size oven. I’m not totally sure, but they might also use impingement(concentrated streams of hot air, as opposed to just regular convection), which is another thing that’s available commercially, usually in pizza ovens or things like the merry-chef/turbo-chef(Subway’s sandwich toasters) but not common in consumer equipment.

This is true in central Canada too. Heat pumps get pushed saying they put out 3 times as much heat as the energy they use, but electricity is 7x the cost of natural gas.

Canadian here, I guess offer directions to the airport so they can get a flight to British Columbia?

This is entirely regional though. The further you are from the equator, the more seasonal variation there is in sunlight levels, and heating/cooling loads. Around here our solar production is minimized during the season when our energy needs are maximized. We also don’t have variable rate billing, though we only get partial credit for excess generation, so battery storage will never pay for itself until something changes.

My utility gives a 50% credit on excess generation. Thing there is the utility is still the one taking responsibility for having the capacity and scalability to respond to variation in demand and production. When I was getting quotes, adding storage would have doubled the cost of the system for a day or two worth of storage. Probably would cost double again to have a system that would keep up through the winter.

This is regional, some places don’t have reduced min wage for tipped employees. Servers make the same min wage as everybody else and earn tips on top of that.

My presumption is that the desalinated water might be cheaper than tap, but would still require further processing to be considered potable, which would raise the price on par or above conventionally sourced tap water. I imagine there’s a lot of costal areas though with ready access to saltwater and minimal access to freshwater where it’s worthwhile.

Lots of Canada’s laws are a little extreme to me, but they cover a lot that you said. Restricted firearms need an extra permit that requires personal references, and must be double locked(like a locked case in a locked safe, or trigger lock plus locked case) during storage and transportation, and we limit magazine sizes. Lots of our gun crime involves firearms purchased legally in the US that make their way here on the black market, so I’m in favour of the US tightening up their gun control.