Postage rates and geopolitical games aside, it’s an easy high horse to stand on to say that quality and good experience is going down the drain in favor of junk

Postage rates and geopolitical games aside, it’s an easy high horse to stand on to say that quality and good experience is going down the drain in favor of junk products and ad-riddled media. Not to say that having junk/ad-riddled stuff is good, but there are two sides to this coin. My feeling during my time I have spent in most lower cost of living countries including China is that people in wealthy countries regularly get ripped off on consumer goods for the mere fact that they live in a wealthy country. For many consumer goods categories they don’t gain a whole lot of additional safety or peace of mind, they’re just paying more. Anyone who has ever gotten prescription glasses made in the markets in China realizes how badly they’re getting ripped off. If you actually live in China you aren’t paying $30 for a hooded sweatshirt like you do when you walk into a Target store. That price would be insane, astronomical (unless you’re just wealthier and shopping specifically at a luxury or Western brand). Let’s take an example: a Boogie Board writing pad. At Barnes and Noble the Boogie Board Jot Kids drawing tablet is $20.99 At Temu/AliExpress, it’s $3.50 total including shipping. I.e., it’s easy for us to say that the “Netflix without ads experience” or the “smart TV without ads/spyware” is the experience we should all have. What’s harder is putting up the money to pay for those items when you’re working a real working class job. I can’t blame anyone for dropping even moderately priced SaaS subscriptions for vibecoded cheap/free alternatives. I’ve done it myself: for example, why is every notes app with a decent feature set and collaborative functionality that is outside the Apple/Google ecosystem $5-10/month? That should cost $5/year.