I may just get out of the tech industry altogether. But I'm also tempted to try my hand at an indie dev project that I have in mind. With AI, it seems like it would be easier than ever to get a new project off the ground. And I don't really mind AI-assisted development personally. It's mainly all the organizational and interpersonal disruption that is giving me a headache at the moment.

Recently on a call with a junior coworker where they asked me to look at some changes they had made, they were completely unable to answer any questions that I asked on their own. The way the conversation went was: I ask a question, they type my question into a ChatGPT prompt, we read the output together and discuss whether it makes sense. This is a person I've had great discussions with in the past, and who has frequently had really good insights, but seems to have completely tapped out.

To be fair, the outputs from ChatGPT tend to be quite good. It's the inputs people give it where problems most often arise - and people seem far too eager to charge ahead with a vibe coded solution built on invalid or incomplete inputs/assumptions. And it's shocking to see how quickly and willingly people have handed over control to LLMs.

Reading through the end-of-lease options, this actually seems like a very buyer-friendly leasing program. There is no additional charge for leasing - the cost to buy out the phone at any point is always just the original purchase price minus any lease payments you've already made. And you don't even have to do anything at the end of the lease, they'll just keep charging you normal monthly payments for up to 6 months after the lease ends (after which point they'll just charge you the remainder of the purchase price less any payments you've made).

> At the end of your initial lease term, you can do one of the following:

> Upgrade and return your current device.

> Leave the program and return your current device.

> Buy the device outright with a one-time payment from your Klarna account.

> If you don’t take any of these actions, your lease will be extended month-to-month for up to six months from the end of your initial lease term to decide which option is right for you. During this time, you’ll be charged your monthly payment until you take action. If a trade-in credit was applied to your lease at the time of enrollment, your payments will also increase during this six-month period because the credit is applied only to your initial lease term. If no action is taken at the end of the six-month period, Klarna will charge you the purchase option fee under your lease to buy the device outright, which equals the full price of the device at lease signing less the sum of lease payments you've already made (plus tax).

Although this lease offer does offer lower monthly payments than financing (as you would expect with a lease, since you're only renting rather than buying a phone) if that's more important to you than total cost of ownership. And may be available to customers who wouldn't otherwise qualify for Apple's financing (which requires an Apple credit card, or a carrier agreement). It's also a 0 money factor - the cost to buy out the phone at lease-end is just the purchase price minus the sum of lease payments made - which is pretty generous.

I have no issues with leasing in theory, as long as the customer understands the trade offs. But in practice I think it often results in consumers buying more than they afford, and costing themselves money in the long run.

It’s some combination of all the above plus some additional dimensions like decision making, etc.

> Duffy added that many current trainees started out as gamers. Only about 25% of controllers hold a traditional college degree, while former controllers note that gaming requires many of the same skills that air traffic controllers use on the job, such as thinking quickly, staying focused and managing multiple sources of information as they guide more than 80,000 flights to their destinations daily.

There is also a rigorous application process to get into the training program that only 10% of applicants pass:

> Among the criteria to become a controller are to hold U.S. citizenship, be under the age of 31 and pass the FAA air traffic pre-employment tests.

> Aspiring controllers must also pass an exam that the FAA says predicts candidates' "aptitude to be an air traffic controller." Within a week, they are notified if they have passed.

> Historically, fewer than 10% of applicants met the FAA's requirements to work as an air traffic controller and gain admission to the agency's training program.

So if gamers on average tend to be younger, and do better on the aptitude test than the general population, I think it makes sense to target them with recruitment campaigns to attempt to increase the number of qualified applicants coming into the funnel. Presumably non-gamers are also still welcome to apply.

And if it doesn’t work out and gamers don’t end up getting accepted at a higher rate than anyone else, then it’s no great loss, either.

Regarding the issue with idols needing to conceal their relationships, you need to keep in mind that the whole "idol" industry basically caters to the Japanese equivalent of "incels" - men who have trouble socializing and who are often emotionally underdeveloped - not the broader Japanese population. I've seen similar unrealistic expectations and coddled behavior from subcultures in the US, such as gamers. (To be clear - I'm not criticizing all gamers here, just certain controversies within the subculture that have gained media attention in recent years).

The survey they quote was conducted by a men's beauty salon that sells hair removal services - not exactly unbiased and there is also no mention of sampling size or methodology:

> A survey conducted in June by Gorilla Clinic, a men's beauty salon, found that 53.5% of respondents – most of whom were women – opposed wearing shorts at work.

Women may find hairy legs unattractive, but so what. You're in the office to work. And wearing a suit in 40c temps is just silly.

But women have long been shaving their legs, and I think a lot of men would also say it's unattractive if women wore shorts with hairy legs. So before men get too outraged, it's worth acknowledging the double standard here.

And recently a lot of young men in Japan are shaving their legs. Even as young as elementary school, boys are removing hair on their legs to emulate their idols in pro soccer, etc. That seems to be the current fashion trend even before the government started encouraging people to wear shorts to work.

But I’ve just always worn watches anyway for telling time, have an affinity for gadgets, and consider the Apple Watch as just a more capable wrist watch. I’m sure the way I wear it - with an extremely worn out and faded “trail loop” band - is extremely unfashionable. But I still like it.

But yeah I think Garmin and other smart watches are definitely preferred by serious athletes (and people who don't like charging their watch daily). Whereas I mostly just use my Apple Watch as a way to get notifications and as a glorified step tracker.

> amazingly I can find no way to turn this behavior off at all, never mind a more fine-grained control like, say, "ignore this event while the app I use to time my runs is in the foreground"

> (there is a global toggle for "device protections" that ostensibly includes this, but it was set to off to begin with so ???)

Or at least give me the option to turn off Auto Pause/Auto End just for hiking workouts - instead I have to turn off the feature for all workouts. But I suppose that level of customization would be very un-Apple.

The world of appliances is littered with these "smart" features that purport to make life more convenient, but are implemented so crudely that they end up causing more trouble than they solve.

Something like delivering newspapers would be a better problem I think - although I suppose you then you get into optimizations like preferring right-hand turns, etc. I wonder what would be the most simple and intuitive demonstration of the traveling salesman problem.

pCloud, a cloud storage provider who offers lifetime plans, uses a similar strategy.

Basically I think they are putting the $750 price out there a) for anyone who is dumb enough to pay it, and b) as a way to make limited-time discounts and the annual plan seem like better deals by comparison.

> Valory said that Plex, which currently does not disclose financial information, generates roughly 20 percent of its revenues from member subscriptions, which unlock premium capabilities of its media platform, compared to 80 percent from the ad business.

So possibly they are just trying to extract as much money as possible from their "legacy" userbase while they can, with the expectation that people hosting their own media libraries are a dwindling market.

Looking at their different features offered in different pricing plans [2], it seems like their strategy is to make money on sharing media libraries with friends and family. $70/year isn't a huge amount to simplify streaming to other (non-technical) people on a variety of different devices. And I suspect some plex users are charging for their access to their media libraries - even if it's something informal like accepting donations or asking for a payment on venmo - in which case the fees would just be a small operating cost.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/robsalkowitz/2024/04/17/venerab...

[2] https://www.plex.tv/plans/

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to Jellyfin for offering an alternative!

[1] https://www.plex.tv/blog/new-lifetime-plex-pass-pricing/