It's not as good as "won't somebody please think of the children" but, apparently lots of people will buy into the notion that their consumer goods are betraying precious national secrets, like how many cat videos they watch and how crispy they like their toast.

This is just rank protectionism, due to the rabid fear American billionaires have that they might not be making ALL the money.

You seem confused. What does the "free market" have to do with Capitalism?

I don't buy this excuse. You can't count on it to debug anything, because it has no idea what is correct and what isn't. If you tell it that you want your gloves to have five fingers, maybe it will manage that, or maybe it will tell you that gloves have six fingers and make up a reference for that fact. Maybe it will apologize after making a run of two-fingered gloves, but that won't stop it from repeating the error.

That got modded "insightful"? Really? It seems wildly out-of-touch. You're already being recorded by cameras almost everywhere you go, and that's not going to become any less common.

No, it really isn't, but some people don't consider food "good" unless it's organic vegan GMO-free products dew-picked at dawn by beautiful virgins.

Healthy food is generally cheap because it doesn't require processing.

You have a TV? Poseur! Turn in your fedora!

You meant Ronald Reagan, right? Probably? Not Donald Regan, the Secretary of the Treasury?

Say, that's a great idea! I've been storing stuff in /dev/null for decades. It never once occurred to me to back it up, and I'll bet there's all sorts of neat stuff in it that I've forgotten about.

I realize that the Wall Street Journal has gone downhill but, seriously. I'd ask why it got reposted here but, slashdot hasn't gone downhill so much as it hasn't ever had much height above sea level.

You may be experiencing dementia, old boy. OS/2 was released in numerous variants, some of which might actually work on occasion.

Honestly, don't people ever have enough of this worthless bullcrap? Are you really so direly invested in quivering in fear?

You know, if they had access to a book that tells you the meaning of the word "word".

You're comically optimistic. You're not getting any $20. You might get $0.83.

The only reason I still have streaming services is that I get them for free with my cell phone and Walmart plans. I might even try them sometime.

On the other hand, I don't know anyone over 50 with a cable subscription anymore... oh wait, I think the landlord does. Contrariwise, my neighbor (30?) does have cable TV.