I've bought a "modern laptop" for $299, for my mother-in-law who didn't use computers until she was about 60.
An "HP Stream 14" or some such. CPU was something Celeron-like, 4GB RAM, Windows in "S mode" (unlocked to run the real thing easily enough)
Took far longer to do anything than the C64 my parents got back in the 1980s.
Are you OK? You don't seem OK.
It's time to learn about the REU!
Considering you can pretty much take any low-end hardware and emulate a C64, or any other 8 bit system, probably the only real challenge is the keyboard. Ironically a suitable mechanical keyboard is by far the most expensive item, with the price ranging from $100-$200.
"Penultimate" isn't a synonym for "ultimate"—it means the thing before the ultimate. Likewise we have penumbra for the blurry edge of a shadow (umbra). This results in some truly special words like "antepenult," meaning "the thing before the thing before the final thing," commonly used when discussing where the stress/accent falls in a Greek or Latin word.
"Invaluable" does indeed mean "not able to be valued" when analyzed morphologically, but the standard usage of it is indicating something is beyond value, i.e. infinitely or inestimably valuable. A value of zero is still a value, after all.
"Inflammable" however actually means "able to be inflamed," as in "put in flame" or "set on fire." The confusion comes from assimilation of the Latin preposition "in" (which we have as "in" or "on") instead of the more typical prefix "in-" (which demarcates negation.) You don't have to look very far for other words where "in" doesn't mean "not": indicate, inherit, imply, investigate, indict, involve...
"Your feedback and contributions have been invaluable."
Were they invaluable? Now they are zero.
From what I have read and heard anecdotally from others, what you are describing is not a one-off. There are several businesses that take this approach, and (from what I gather) it tends to be most popular in sales departments.
It's called Stack Ranking and it causes problems when people need to cooperate (like on programming teams), because people won't cooperate, they'll backstab each other. It's entirely counterproductive.
It works ok on sales teams when salespeople operate independently of each other. (ie, the more they work together, the less it works).
None of which are defined with the authority of the copyright owner.
LOL no doubt that will hold up in court. The law doesn't say it has to be defined with the authority of the copyright owner.
The part about authority means that even if you manage to break the copy protection (which you have by switching your user agent), if you do that without authorization, then you've broken the law.
Again, this is one of the problems with the DMCA.
"Flattery is all right -- if you don't inhale." -- Adlai Stevenson