There are no winners in this conflict on either side.

Only thing going on is maximising capital extraction from the moat they created. End users no longer matter as long as the numbers keep going up.

I go on holiday 6 times a year for that money.

The 15 year old turd seems to go wrong less and cost less to fix when it does as well.

6 months late and I know a clean up contractor who is making bank there with no hope of recovering it apparently.

They saw it as a way out from their cheap assery, lack of talent and lowest bidding outsourcer over the years and it’s a dead end. I wonder how many other projects are in this situation.

"The best camera is the one you carry" is about opportunistic capture of moments i.e. it's better to record them on anything than nothing. That doesn't always work. I've lost more moments than I gained on a smartphone camera which won't focus on what I want, does weird uncorrectable things with white balance, has a pretty nasty digital zoom, or has gunk on the lens from being handled.

As for lowering the temperature, good luck. Anyone with above average influence is in a position to try and extract as much personal gain from this already.

It kills me inside because I would like to live in a world where this isn’t the case.

I have a mirrorless camera if I want to shoot telephoto. That has 375mm reach at the long end on proper glass with no ML crap.

For me, and a lot of people, we get a new phone every 2 years and hand the old one down to family. I've got 3 kids and 4 iPhones in service that get handed down every 2 years. Equivalent in the UK of about $80 a month to run 4 iphones including phone service contracts is pretty cheap.