Everything comes with a catch these days. Our relationship with brands used to be closed-end. Widget Mark II is 30% faster than my old Widget Mark I? Here is

Everything comes with a catch these days. Our relationship with brands used to be closed-end. Widget Mark II is 30% faster than my old Widget Mark I? Here is a stack of dollars for it, and we're done until five years from now when I'm ready to consider Widget Mark III+ with Chili and Lime. Now everyone's all about the back-end relationship. It's gotta come with some subscription service, account, or back-end drip revenue from harvesting data. Half the time it's deliberately crippled to serve some business interest. It's hard to be as wide-eyed when you have to be reading the fine print to see exactly how you're being screwed.