A 1999 Honda Civic or Toyota Corolla, assuming serviced regularly (and competently) could easily be on the road today.
I genuinely do not believe a 2025 car will usable on the road in 2035 (a mere 9 years), yet known 15 or 20 years from now. They are all too hamstrung by technology and whilst some of the technology is an improvement, a vast majority if malicious.
You can buy current cars that do not require any subscription services. For example on my 2025 Hyundai here is what would stop working without a Bluelink subscription.
• Anything you do through the Bluelink app.
• Automatic calling for help after a collision, enhanced roadside assistance (sends GPS coordinates to help center so you don't have to know where you are to get help), and features to track and immobilize stolen vehicles.
• The navigation system loses access to live traffic data and live routing (routing the frequently checks with a server to update routes based on live and historical traffic patterns). Local search also degrades or maybe goes away.
• OTA updates for the navigation system. If you want to update its maps and databases you can download the update from their site to a thumb drive, and then install it via that.
What keeps working:
• All the driver assist and driving safety features like adaptive cruise control, lane finding/keeping, cross traffic warnings, and similar.
• CarPlay and Android Auto.
• The radio in the infotainment system. You can connect your phone via Bluetooth or USB (without using CarPlay or Android Auto) to stream music and handle phone calls.
The reason Toyota prices are still so high is because they're one of the only vehicles that are still so reliable (Mazda and Honda are actually great too). I think a 2025 Lexus GX 550 will almost certainly be on the road in 2035. Anything electric I am less certain of because they depreciate way faster and the build quality sucks.
The latest Lexus models including the one you cited are getting in huge trouble for quality problems right now. Anything without a 2JZ is suspect from Lexus right now.
Home "ownership" is misleading. You don't own a home until you've paid it off.
Younger people are getting into more debt, for much longer in order to be able to survive.
When we start comparing the numbers (i.e, house paid off, even reflected as a percentage paid off, relative to age) the numbers reveal the real crisis.
Anecdotally, I know tons of 20-30 year olds getting into the property market (with insane levels of debt with almost impossible loan lengths) simply because if they don't do it now, there is a high chance homeless is the next option.
That's not quite true. If you want to think that way, then you'd never own it because you'll always pay property taxes so the paying never stops.
But as soon as you buy a home it is your asset. Yes, you have a debt against it. But you are the owner. Go look up the owner in the county records and it is you.
To be pedantic what most people consider ownership is a revocable land lease from the state government which you forfeit if you fail to pay protection money to the gov.
Why? The military power owns things by enforcing their ownership. This is, in fact, the true ownership.
You have to pay taxes to own land so the power which is on your side can prevent another power to re-own it.
If you don't pay taxes to the power which is on your side, why would it allow you to own stuff and provide free protection? Out of good will?
That's how the world works, ownership without the power behind it is non-existent, as well as power without the money behind it is non-existent. When there are enough powers balancing each other, stable systems emerge, and we all can enjoy some few decades of peace and prosperity.
You also run the risk of insurance declining your claim due to unauthorized or self-installed electrical work, even if your work wasn't the source of a fire/problem.
Whilst you don't "need" an Apple account to setup a Mac, using a Macbook without an account may not be viable for a lot of people.
First and foremost, you cannot install any applications through the primary method of app installation, which is the App Store.
You also cannot use certain applications like iMovie (which is pre-installed) without an Apple Account.
MacOS will always prompt you in the Settings to sign in with iCloud. Opt into Betas, including Public and Developer Betas are not possible without an iCloud account.
The Apple land is miles better than the Microsoft land, which you aptly point out though.
I've never seen it stated anywhere that the App Store is the primary method for macOS. Well, I could be wrong, maybe Apple does mention it somewhere, but pretty much every popular app publisher still publishes their .dmg file directly on their own website, much like most Windows developers.
At least I've never had to use the store in my 15+ years of using MacBooks, and I can't see myself using one anytime soon, unless Apple starts forcing you to (in which case I'll just stick to using homebrew).
This isn't the smoking gun you think it is though.
Of course Alcohol and Tobacco are high up on the list because they are legal. The percentage of people drinking vs percentage of people doing heroin is not even comparable.
Apparently <0.2% of people in the UK are heroin users. [0].
Apparently above 50% of people in the UK drink once a week or more [1]
What should be surprising is that 0.2% of the population results in the second highest negative impacts on society. Not that something the vast majority partake in causes the most issues, of course it does given the sheer scale of it.
Put simply, imagine if 50% of the UK did Heroin at least once a week, it would be much worse than alcohol usage.
Australia (and the States) tried to impose ever increasing tax and restriction on smoking and over the last few years, smoking has reached critical mass, with more people smoking, cheaper smokes, and smokes becoming more available AND less regulated.
Previously a 20 pack was around $40-60 at most smoke shops, then the illegal darts started to come in, they were priced as low as $6 or $8 for the cheapest 20 pack. They become rampant and barely anyone purchased genuine smokes. In fact, these illegal smoke stores were exactly like real smoke shops, proper business, proper storefront and everything. Excluding the prices, you couldn't tell you were buying illegal products.
I predominantly agree with your comment, although framing the way the legal system works as just "elect a party who says they want to remove it" is fairly short sighted in my opinion.
It is much easier to pass new laws, then to remove old laws. Parties also tend to not get elected because of promises for law adjustments, its primarily based upon policy adjustments and most people aren't single issue voters, the want to smoke might be a consideration for some people but even the most diehard smokers probably have 20 other things more important on their mind when at the voting booth.
I would assume users who have an existing subscription will be grandfathered in.
It would seem misleading to sell monthly, or even yearly, subscriptions under the guise Claude Code comes with the subscription, for it to only be yanked out underneath you. (Although depending who you ask, Anthropic have already done actions similar to this).
I genuinely do not believe a 2025 car will usable on the road in 2035 (a mere 9 years), yet known 15 or 20 years from now. They are all too hamstrung by technology and whilst some of the technology is an improvement, a vast majority if malicious.
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