You’re wrong in this specific case, but you’re actually not too far off in your overall assessment. Your scepticism is warranted. My true reason for canceling would be that I’m not satisfied with the service. Their corporate behavior would merely be a motivating factor to log into the website and click cancel when I would otherwise not think much about letting it autorenew each month.

But yeah, do I purchase goods and services from bad companies? Of course I do. You try successfully avoiding all Nestle products. It’s damn near impossible. Can’t switch away from Comcast because there are no available competitors. I don’t think twice about buying food from Chick-fil-A. OK, maybe I think twice, but I can’t say that second thought has ever truly impacted my decision. The list goes on.

The only company I’ve taken a very firm stance against is Meta/Facebook. It’s easy to live without participating in Facebook’s services. They may collect data about me against my will, but I no longer voluntarily give them anything.

Realistically? No. Or at least not JUST because they advertise on Xitter. It would be one of those final straw things. I’m not entirely satisfied with the service to begin with, so that would be the motivation I need to finally say “yeah, I don’t need to be paying this company any more”. So if it weren’t for my partner, yes I would be canceling when I otherwise might have let the subscription sit for longer.

But if there were shows or movies that I personally enjoyed watching, (which is the case fire my partner) their choice to advertise on Xitter doesn’t impact our decision one bit and they know it. Which is exactly why they went right back to advertising there.

Here’s where the loyalty part comes into play: if the insurance company doesn’t like something, they can and will drop you or refuse to renew your policy depending on relevant laws. They might have decent service and pay claims without much of a fight, and those are incredibly valuable service qualities. So you’re making the right decision for yourself if that’s what’s important to you and that’s the experience you’ve had.

But if all things are equal, there’s no good reason to pay a higher premium for the same service. You better believe that insurance company will drop you in a heartbeat if their analysis indicates that they won’t have the level of profit from you that they want. As a for-profit business, that’s their perogative just as much as it’s yours if you want to switch.

I tend to agree with you by the way. Loyalty comes in many forms. I might not be loyal to a company per se. If they’ve consistently provided me with a level of service that I’m satisfied with at a price that I feel is appropriate for the value, then I’m not going to go through the trouble of checking prices and switching carriers every year just to save a few bucks. And there’s the hassle of being hounded by a half dozen companies that now have your contact info after you requested quotes. That’s all a big no thanks from me.

You might be able to adjust things without taking your eyes off the road fairly safely if you had some sort of tactile feedback. Like a knob to adjust the volume of the radio or another knob or lever to adjust the heat/AC. I doubt you could do so just as reliably and without accidentally hitting a different button with a touch screen without looking at all, but even if you can, most drivers couldn’t.

There’s also a learning curve to contend with. Put me in a car with a standard stereo that has a volume knob, and I’ll be able to use it without looking pretty quickly and without error. Put me in a car that has only a touch screen with a UI that is different from every other manufacturer’s UI, now I have to memorize where buttons are. And until I have it memorized, I have to look.

It isn’t at all reasonable or feasible to suggest you shouldn’t adjust any control unless you’re stopped. That completely ignores the fact that the US is comprised of many highways and interstates that won’t have any stops for hours under the right conditions. You’re telling me that you exit the freeway just to adjust the AC? That’s a lie and you know it. And again, even if that’s the case for you, it isn’t the case for most drivers.

Cars marketed to the masses should be designed for use by the masses and should be designed with safety in mind. These are 80 mph tin cans that can do a ton of damage and need to be treated as such. Especially modern EVs with batteries that burn with the light and temperature of 1000 suns when damaged.

Also “every other driver is staring at their phone” sounds like a disingenuous way to suggest that taking your eyes off the road is okay because everyone else does it too. Yes, lots of people do, but lots of people do not, and just because some do, that doesn’t mean we should design our cars in a way that requires the same level of inattention.

They were always going to. As long as Xitter has a user base with money to spend, the large corporations do not care. Anything they do like withdrawing advertising is all for show.

And after all, are you going to cancel your Netflix subscription over this? I actually probably would personally but my partner uses it quite a lot, so we’re sticking around. Some people will cancel no doubt but nowhere near a critical mass that will affect their bottom line and they know it.

I want to believe you and I hope you’re right, but I have such little faith in corporations ever doing the right thing anymore.

Google has a history of this sort of “whoops, we got caught, uhhh… That was just a bug!” behavior.

Let me simplify this for you:

So conservatives don’t care if the children of liberal parents are victims?

That right there is my point. What are the deaths of a few children so long as there are zero restrictions placed on gun ownership? They won’t care until it affects them in a very personal way. The people with the capacity to change things are presently choosing not to. One has to wonder what would finally cause them to do something.

And I’m not even asking for anything crazy like the assault weapons ban that has been floated recently. We can’t even get the most reasonable legislation passed.

Our answer to “more gunmen” cannot be “more guns”. Or, rather, it can, but take a look around. How’s that working out for us?

Wow. Just wow. There was an attempt.

You’re seeing what you want to see my man, not what’s actually written. Try again.

My rant illustrated my point, yes, but I don’t think it’s the gotcha that you seem to think it is.

My point is that people are voting for politicians who are actively working against many of their constituents interests. And they’re tending to vote that way because they believe politicians’ words instead of observing their actions.

If you care to refute any of my points, feel free.

That’s downright fantasy talk. Voters minds have been so poisoned that they don’t give a shit about policy anymore. Republican politicians haven’t had an actual platform for at least a decade.

Their platform is only to stimie any progress and protect the rich. They may say lots of words but one need only look at the way they vote and yet are still consistently reelected.

They say they’ll fix things but never do even when they control both houses and the presidency. That should have been a republican free for all in 2016, but nothing of value happened for those two years. No immigration reform. No healthcare reform. No gun reform. Oh, but they did pass a tax reform bill and guess who that helped.

They won’t do it until one of their kids is a victim and suddenly it affects them personally. And even then, only one vote will change.

That’s their M.O. They don’t care when their policies are actively hurting other people so long as they aren’t affected.

I don’t really see how the data lost is actionable in any way

Agreed unfortunately. An important thing in US law that people often don’t know is that in most cases, you need to prove that you were damaged in some way. Unless the company broke a specific law, you probably just have to accept it until you have problems relating to identity theft. And even when that happens, you’d still need to prove that the the attacker used the lost 23andMe data.

I personally don’t understand why people use these services in the first place. Let’s all let some private company that we know nothing about build an absolutely massive database of people’s DNA. And let’s voluntarily do it and even pay them for that “service”. Sure, that sounds like a good idea. What could possibly go wrong? Hope your minor curiosity was worth the massive privacy invasion.

If you build it, maybe they’ll come.

I think what you’re saying is really important to the overall discussion. The initial cost is only one factor when considering cost of ownership.

You might be able to buy an EV for about the same price as a similarly equipped gas-powered car. But instead of oil changes and mechanical upkeep of the engine, now you have a whole new set of systems to maintain and repair. There aren’t a ton of repair shops out there yet for EVs. Even though there might be fewer mechanical problems overall with EVs, the cost and difficulty of getting a repair can be much higher.

Then there’s the battery issue. A gas car engine will remain mostly the same in terms of mpg and overall power output throughout the life of the vehicle. Sure, there will be deterioration, but it could be much worse with batteries. I’d be somewhat hesitant to buy a used EV because it can be difficult to know what state the batteries are in or how much longer they will last.

Tesla failed at (one thing) is not the same as Tesla failed completely.

Out of curiosity, how much would it cost for you to consider an EV affordable for the everyday person?

The Chevy Bolt has been around for years and can be purchased new for less than $30k. Same with the Nissan Leaf. That’s a pretty attainable number for a lot of working adults, and that’s assuming you buy brand new. Multiple 2020 Bolts are available near me for around $20k. I’m seeing Bolts that might be another year or two older as low as $15k

I’d argue that price isn’t the thing keeping people away from EVs. You can buy a relatively inexpensive EV if you want to.

Second Amendment II - The Gunening

Of course, the only person who would try to do this is doing an essay about marijuana.

MacBook: “Oh, hey chickenlady… I see your up. Yeah, I couldn’t sleep either. Why don’t you come over here and spend some time in my soft white glow. We can just surf the web and consume for hours.”