Because they know their software can and will fuck up, and don't want to be responsible for the results regardless of what their Nazi-saluting ketamine-addict CEO has to say about it.

Not hard to understand.

Yes, it tells us that there is latency between current events and mass world view being updated sufficiently.

Please enumerate what parts of the current "American Way" of mass deportations, stripping foreign aid funding, and not upholding ourselves to previously ratified trade treaties lends itself to "kindness and morality" because that's the current "American Way."

Please wake up.

You seem to still believe there is a logical connection between laws, and what these people blame.

They'll pass a nonsense law against cloud seeding, and then still claim the "deep state" is ILLEGALLY doing it anyway, and there's a massive conspiracy to cover it all up.

You know, kind of like how all Democrats and Hollywood types were / are pedophiles, and all they need is the Epstein files to prove it. Until, of course, they have said files, and now magically those files don't exist and never did regardless of the exact same people saying they did, and they were sitting on their desk being actively reviewed.

These people have no obligation to truth or consistency, so please stop pretending they do. You will be far more healthy if you just stop trying to connect the unconnectable - just accept that they're lying to you. Either they were lying to you before, or they are lying to you now. Or perhaps both.

Which is an easy point of view to have, should you be a western / American person.

Now look at that through the lens of China. I'm pretty sure the folks in charge want absolutely nothing to do with "the American Way" but the studio is very much interested in the Chinese Yuan.

"Smart" Device, idiot purchaser.

Anyone with any amount of critical thinking knew there was a sunset date to these devices, if someone is footing a bill for an unseen compute resource that exists between the device and your phone. Nobody in their right mind is going to keep footing that bill for 20+ years, with only one purchase payment.

Buy stuff that works direct from your phone, or works via software you can install and control on premises. Otherwise you're on borrowed time, and the bean counters are the ones that control the clock.

At some point in the distant past, they used to make quality stuff. But that hasn't been the case in quite some time. Now it's the same craptastic garbage everyone else sells, in different plastics with a significant "brand" markup.

Fuck Belkin. I haven't bought anything with their name on it in over a decade because of this kind of thing.

I'm positive that their sunset date isn't magically after the last registered warranty in the database expires, or some double-digit number of days after the product was end-of-sale.

Good.

Maybe that would get them to write less shitty code, and do less dubious things.

If you don't like the $300 thermostat, do not look at the price of thermostats from HVAC OEMs that properly handle variable-speed heat pumps and multi-zone setups. Ours shit the bed and it was $900 for a new unit, which is just a replacement of the piece of shit we already had with no changes, except they apparently fixed the wifi chipset so it doesn't shit itself at the thought of a meshed network.

Love the efficiency of the rest of the system, but the t-stat is fucking garbage.

No, they'll just not buy from Belkin again. They'll still want the dubious "value" offered by "connected" devices that connect via proprietary crap from fly-by-night operators that decide supporting their legacy products isn't worth the expense any more and just shut it off.

Demand open standards, and this bullshit doesn't happen as easily.

This is absolute horseshit.

List of things that didn't exist when I was 12, which near everyone my age or older uses on a regular basis:
Smartphones
Cellular data services
WiFi
Commercialized internet access
Instant messaging
Streaming media
"The Cloud"
Residential broadband

Your theory contends there is still tens of millions of people in the US in their mid-40s and above regularly using dial-up, or are completely disconnected because they "refuse to acknowledge or interact" with any of the above. Ridiculous.

Even better than that, the police don't need a search warrant to use anything they find in the trash you put out, because it's technically property of the waste hauling business when they pick it up.

Just watch for the first case where exactly what you're talking about is used as probable cause for a warrant to take down some drug stash houses.

That's ok, most municipalities don't know either.

I live in one of the most "eco-friendly" municipalities in the US, and I cannot recycle styrofoam with a big ass recycle triangle stamped in the side of it at the curb - I have to drive somewhere to do it.

They're inviting landfills filled with recyclable material. In fact, they bitch at you if you dare leave the styrofoam inside a cardboard box in the recycling where mixed recycling is the norm.

I'm afraid that's not available for you at any price. /rimshot

You forgot: spending energy on printing and mailing post cards that will just end up in the trash, causing more postcards to be mailed because postcards are recyclable.

When I lived in Ohio a few years ago, nobody gave a fuck about recycling. I doubt getting extra junk mail to throw away is going to turn the tide.