thusky

And you have a not insignificant number of 1%ers in Saudi Arabia and China, and scattered around the rest of the world as well. Wasn't the CEO of Alibaba the richest person in the world for a minute circa 2020?

Near the end he makes clear that his concern was about having a robot with a more or less static script hastily replace the human who has some actual authority. I think we've all experienced this to some extent and it is definitely getting more commonplace.

The way you define Americans making a choice sounds a lot like a simple hill climbing algorithm. Once you're on the path of your nearest hill you're stuck there until conditions change, even if you can see a mountain in the distance you would have our whole society ignore it and stay on our little hill? That's why China is and will continue lapping us at transportation. Yes you should care, or at least be able to expect someone to care, or at LEAST not try to talk someone who does care out of it.

>I don't waste time agonizing over alternatives that might exist elsewhere but are not accessible to me.

But you're happy to waste time arguing against them?

I don't think the idea that the general, informed will of Americans somehow chose cars over public transportation holds water. What was the mechanism of that choice on an individual level, free of influence from car companies, between a future with car infrastructure with all the impacts understood (including the land space costs preventing density and efficiency) and other solutions?

It is demonstrably the correct answer, regardless what the largely un- or just as often mis-informed think, not that they were really "asked" in the first place.

"These days" that wasn't the case four years ago when they arbitrarily took it away. How would you know what the level of demand is? I would selectively purchase a phone with a headphone jack over one without, but that demand is meaningless without an option. Apple led the pack with the highest R&D budget of them all, with a premium smartphone. They, uniquely, took the headphone jack away while launching airpods.

You're right about there being no mystery there.

It isn't even "Bluetooth vs 3.5mm" it's 3.5mm vs. Not having 3.5mm

Every phone prior to 2020 had both. If your 3.5mm broke that sucks, but that would just put you in the exact situation we have today generally. If you never use it anyway why do you care?

I just don't understand how so many people are arguing in favor of a company obviously making a move to force their customers into buying something they didn't necessarily want.

Same, one generation 3.5mm was a given, next time I needed a phone I have no choice. Who asked me? I would have, if given the choice, bought a phone with wired headphones, an SD card slot, and an IR blaster like my previous phone had but none of those were options. Now the phone I have is bigger than I wanted, has worse battery life, and kills my run tracking apps once the screen has been off for 2 minutes with no option to disable that behavior (obviously spackling over the pitifully small battery by annoyingly killing anything using power)

On the plus side it has a 120 hz display that doesn't help me either.

They missed my biggest frustration with Bluetooth audio. I want to connect to the TV or my phone, but my headphones want to connect to my computer upstairs or vice versa. Now I have to go upstairs, apologize to the person using that device, and reach over their shoulder to unpair before it lets me connect to my phone. With a 3.5mm I know exactly which device I'm going to connect to and I don't have to negotiate with any 3rd parties for the privilege.