What I’m hearing is we use TOPS to measure bots

Ngl it’s in the weird uncanny valley for me too, I’m not sure what is going on.

I mean that’s just kinda the way it is in the US / Canada. Though I hear Canada has even higher prices for less service.

Yeah I’m in the US and those “free” phone contracts over 3 years are objectively terrible deals when you look at the total cost of $100–120/mo or more with the “free” phone on one of the big three vs buying it outright and paying $25/mo (ish) with an MVNO.

Even if you assume a total cost of $100 at Verizon with the “free” phone—which I believe is a super low estimate—and you assume $45 at Visible (shameless referral plug)—which is their most expensive tier—you’re coming out at $1980 less in contracts over 3 years which could buy you (virtually) any phone you want and then some.

I’m sure there is more than one mom and pop outfit using them who thought they were just “new quick books”. I would certainly feel sorry for people who are swindled by con men, and this feels the same to me.

Not sure if it’s directly related, but I donate to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). They’re quite active in the technology space and I feel that they also carry the FOSS ethos.

https://eff.org/

You can also buy shielded Ethernet cables (especially for installation parallel to power lines) which would be much, much harder to jam.