You missed my point: mass producers are, at this point, selling the batteries first. What devices they drive are almost immaterial to the extra profit they drive. Outside of the power tools market, which includes more independent-minded and self-sufficient people than most markets, the favorite strategy is to embed the batteries inside devices and encourage the ignorant to simply dispose of the entire device when the batteries limit its function. We can perhaps thank Philips Norelco and Black and Decker for starting this trend; now everybody emulates their success.

(Of course the very best tools won't be found in any one-size-fits-all kit, no moreso than buying an all-in-one stereo or printer-scanner-FAX machine would get you the very best components. Those are, however, what most people buy, whether out of ignorance or desperation or lack of funds. That was not the point.)

Why do bigots behave like bigots, is that what you're asking? There was SOME ancestral benefit to it, apparently, but like so many other anachronisms it has long since outlived its beneficial purpose, but bigots are slow to grasp the new reality. Anachronisms are stubborn persistent beasts, however, more resistant to change than any low-functioning autistic, even moreso when there's a residual cultural impetus to them.

Where was this argument when the Cordless Revolution began in earnest in the Seventies?

Oh, right: being ignored by virtually everyone, just as it is now. Humans are selfish to the point of being foolishly short-sighted.

Here's an experiment for you: try to find a "kit" of commonly used CORDED power tools offered by a manufacturer, similar to the kits of cordless tools that have been offered for the last decade. I can predict the result: you won't find one. The batteries benefit the mass producers MUCH more than they benefit you, so they don't sell what benefits them less. We should be lucky they still sell corded tools at all, since so many stupid people have bought into the Cordless Revolution.

"Algorithms Don't Discriminate: People Do"

Since the algorithms didn't write themselves (yet?), the inherent biases and prejudices of the people who designed the algorithms were built right into them. Algorithms reflect their human creators, warts and all.

Karmazin said, "We're a company interested in making you young and poor again."

FTFY.

I'm sure that movie critic was well paid for his crafty snarky wordplay, but not everyone agrees with him. Some people do like it, not necessarily as a continuation but as a revisionist finale:
https://arstechnica.com/gaming...

This story appears to not be telling the truth, and in doing so begins to smell like a company trying to do exactly what it claims of its competitor: using an anti-competitive tactic, in this case a manufactured news story with false claims.

If Google was really wholly responsible for this action, having a motive of chilling interest in a competing product and thus being anti-competitive, why would Google stop at the borders of the European market? This Fleksy keyboard is still rated E-for-Everyone in the United States. If Google's motive was to put the brakes to interest in a competing app, would it really be so careless as to change its content rating in JUST ONE market and leave all others untouched?

I call bullshit.

You're quite wrong. The leverage the One Percent have, especially over the "lower class" but literally over everyone else, is their dependency upon them for employment. That is the primary leverage they exploit to preserve their dominance and prevent an actual revolution with guillotines. When a recession hits, what is the reaction of the One Percent? They begin "downsizing", laying off or firing their dependents, in retaliation for their loss of profit. What is the reaction of their dependents? Negotiation for their jobs back, with either fewer work hours or reduced pay, or both, and reduced or eliminated secondary benefits.

The old dynamic driving revolutions has changed because of the Industrial and Information Ages and the enormous competency and self-sufficiency gap those Ages have created. Most people dependent upon the One Percent for employment simply can't walk away and expect to survive. That gap didn't exist prior to the Eighteenth Century. The One Percent know this gap exists and exploit it to stall the revolutions that would otherwise occur periodically as wealth becomes excessively concentrated. The sky is no longer the limit for them.

Nevertheless, economists are generally brainwashed by their curriculum and discipline's culture, so I'm not inclined to treat much they say as Gospel, nor should anyone. These are the same "experts" who for generations have been telling us all that recessions and depressions are bad, when in fact they're only truly bad for the One Percent. A recession is the beginning of an economic revolution in which the disadvantaged attempt to restore to themselves a more equitable share of resources. If the fact that none of them has succeeded in that goal since at least the Great Depression is proof of anything, it's proof that the One Percent has become far more adept at distracting and manipulating the disadvantaged. We now have a President who further proves that.

Economists are, generally speaking, the trained lackeys of the One Percent, trained and indoctrinated in a "school" of thought that supports their motives and tactics just a wee bit more than those of everyone else.

FYI: https://www.grammarly.com/blog...

Does no one know about California's so-called "Lemon Law" that has preceded this recent right-to-repair craze by decades? Most people ignorantly presume that it only pertains to automobiles; that isn't true. It pertains to ANY product sold to citizens that had a sale price of over $100(?). It required that manufacturers continue to provide parts and documentation necessary to maintain any such product for no less than seven years.

When my favorite 21-inch Nokia CRT monitor died in the late Nineties, I discovered that Nokia had pulled some typical corporate shenanigans: they had sold their display subsidiary to Viewsonic while I owned the monitor. However, Nokia effectively gave Viewsonic little more than the brand name, because some or all of the parts were being supplied by third parties who were not under contract to Viewsonic and so had stopped making the crucial parts. I wanted to get it repaired, and several shops were willing but unable because of the missing parts.

At some point in the many conversations I had, someone had mentioned how the Lemon Law applied. I contacted a lawyer about using it as the basis for a lawsuit, but they declined to take the case.

California, at least, has been trying to do right by hobbyist engineers and the environment for DECADES, and no one else was paying attention until now. I certainly wish people had been paying attention when I needed my favorite monitor repaired.

Regarding having companies call you (back), have you noticed that, of those that offer such a service to those on hold, most don't bother to handle the callbacks in chronological order with calls still on hold? Most companies will abuse the promised callbacks by deferring them to a time when it suits their fancy to commit an employee to the call. There should be a black list for such companies, and a white list with gold stars for the ones who handle every contact in the order received.

This is essentially the same strategy that telemarketers have been using with demon dialers and robo-calling for decades now. It's a treat to see someone turning that technology back against our corporate overlords.

This is how technology companies handle technology.

The One Percent have always behaved like a mafia: they "take care of their own" as if they were family, but treat everyone else as inferior garbage to be exploited at will.