Inflation will start to increase as well as the federal reserve cuts rates. Housing will become more expensive as a result and rent will follow shortly after.

Was forced to have one of these when renting, and hated this garbage.

Did that with my carry on bag. Now I have a top bag!

Really not that bad when it comes to work life balance, really depends where you work at. However, I'd say if you decide to go this route, really make an effort to get internships as often as you can. The market is rough and if you don't have anything to show for your time in college you'll have a bad time when you graduate. I suppose this provably goes for most degrees, but also try to network so that you have options post graduation.

Now that's a fun car in a small package! Is this coming to the states?

I still don't really believe that tracking is offsetting cost all that much in these phones. Firstly, there's no data to suggest there's any saving is being done here. We can only speculate since nobody has release data on that point. But what we can look at is how google is pricing their phones relative to equivalent phones in their fields, which we can see is competitively priced but not too far from their competitors. If we ignore revenue from tracking, we still see significant margins and profit. That just goes to show that in this case any savings we can guess at from tracking doesn't need to be factored in. Googles competitive pricing can be more so attributed to its sheer size, already massive pool of software developers, ability to manufactory anywhere in the world to lower costs and ability to manufacture a limited amount of models of phones at a time to reduce cost and pool resources from its other departments. Nothing to me suggests that there is anything but other market forces at play that makes google act competitively.

Price comparisons of their phones: https://www.androidauthority.com/google-pixel-prices-1147281/

I feel like this is going into different discussion but honestly, in this scenario, I don't really believe the subsidy of tracking really means anything here.

Out of curiosity, I looked up the production cost of some phones and googles pixel 6 pro, their flagship at the time, which cost google $485 to manufacture. They retailed for $899. Where is the saving from the money they're making from tracking? That's just the standard pricing range for phones of that tier. Its even cheaper for the base models. Phones are not exactly a low margin device from what I see here.

Source for what I said https://www.techwalls.com/production-costs-of-smartphones/

Funny enough, if you look at other brands, their margins are huge!

Aptera sounds like a cool idea. I guess recent ICE vehicles are pushing a lot of the same junk nowadays too, but I suppose the difference is you have options with ICE cars. I really hope I don't have to buy a car anytime soon!

I can get behind tracking for subsidies. I think the underlying issue is the lack of choice. Coming from someone who uses a pixel, at least you have the option to flash whatever operating system you want onto the device. Despite there being some tracking even with Graphene OS, a consumer still has some control over how their phone works. I don't think that'll be an option for any EV that depends on software to function - especially with how hard manufacturers are locking you into their services.

I think that makes sense. Seems to me that the EV market is mostly considered a luxury commodity at the moment and so isn't being made as a dependable and meaningful alternative to ICE machines yet. It partly worries me though that some law initiatives are pushing for EVs but without addressing waste, and ownership and reliability that applies to dumb cars. I've owned my ICE car for almost 2 decades, and that's something I'd like to see in an EV before I can make the switch.

I suppose after market modifications are always a place to address needs not being met by manufacturers. But how likely are you going to do that if it voids your warranty, and your car needs to be maintained by authorized repair for things related to software that isn't available to the public or other things locked into the company ecosystem?