I would never advise anyone buy a Microsoft Windows laptop these days — between the forced updates, the account and service-fee thirst, ads, and consumer unfriendly product release process (forced opt-in).
Guess what? With Apple's new Neo laptop the price is also way way wayyy out to lunch.
If MSFT gives a business a huge bulk discount to buy their laptops + Office360 + Teams... OK? But as a "consumer" it really sucks.
The Neo costs $200 more than a comparable Windows laptop, but with half the RAM and storage as said comparable Windows laptop.
They're fighting to seize the very specific market segment of "I don't like Windows and don't want to use Linux or a Chromebook, and I'm also poor, but still want to pay a premium price for an underpowered tablet with keyboard glued to it."
Please, by all means do post a link to a comparable new Windows laptop for $400, including a fast GPU, reasonable amount of fast storage (and not counting an SD card or such), a high-DPI monitor, and non-embarassing build quality. I'd love to see this.
The GPU in the Neo isn't particularly fast...nor is the storage. Neo makes loads of compromises to hit $600 with some of it's features. Even for $400 you can get Windows PCs with TWO whole USB 3.0 ports. $400 quickly hits diminishing returns territory.
Twice the storage, twice the RAM, comparable GPU. CPU is a slower in single core, but comparable in multi-core. Faster storage. USB 4, HDMI, multiple USB A ports. Supports more than 1 external monitor. Yep, chassis and screen are worse but it's better in many other ways.
So for $100 less, you get a markedly lower-DPI screen that's 40% dimmer, a slower CPU, hotter running, and a worse chassis. Almost no one's going to be slapping multiple external monitors on either of these. If they did, they might run into the problem where the Acer is often limited to 640x480: https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/733442/have-a-new-a...
That is not remotely in the same category as the Neo.
You get twice as much RAM, twice as much storage. 4x faster storage too. You get a full sized HDMI port. You can do multiple monitors if you need to. It has a fan for better sustained performance. You can plug in a flash drive, mouse, monitor or other external peripheral without a dongle. Oh, and it's actually COOLER running than the Neo.
The Neo costs a $100 more, needs a $30 dongle to connect to 90% of the stuff people have, has half the RAM, half the storage, slower storage. Has considerably worse I/O. But has a better screen and build quality comparable to a MacBook Pro from 2007.
It's different compromises. Personally I'd rather have more RAM, storage and IO than a prettier case and better screen.
The quibbling about ram is strange only because Apple is much better positioned to utilize ram since they are vertically integrated. I produce music and occasionally compile Haskell on my 2016 MacBook with an i3 and 8gigs of ram. So I’m in the 99th percentile power user and a 10 year old machine works great. I bet the new Mac would be even better.
It doesn’t have 8gigs of ram to cheat the consumer. It’s because this company can do 10000 hours of user testing to see what people need to do their normal people things.
No, they're not "better positioned" to utilize memory.
NT has a far better VMM than macOS does and handles OOM significantly better than macOS (and Linux, for that matter).
Look no further than the various Mac subreddits for applications such as TextEdit, Calculator, Safari, and other first and third party applications leaking like a sieve to the point of OOM for multiple versions of macOS at this point.
Not to mention, Macs are sharing that precious memory with the CPU; on those 8GiB machines, leaving 7.5GiB or less (depending on what you're doing) for the kernel to use for non-graphics services.
> NT has a far better VMM than macOS does and handles OOM significantly better than macOS (and Linux, for that matter).
That's one of my great frustrations with Windows. NT is a fine kernel. The userspace on top of that is fucking terrible though.
When people compare "operating systems" they're not comparing the kernel. They're at the most technical comparing the userspace tools shipped with that kernel, and at their most general the "ethos" of the developers that build the ecosystem. The terrible experience on windows of every programing having an installer that pokes around god knows where in the registry is just as much an experience of the Windows operating system as piping curl into bash is on Linux.
> NT has a far better VMM than macOS does and handles OOM significantly better than macOS (and Linux, for that matter).
All of them handle OOM the same way: paging to disk with subsequent thrashing. How can any OS be better than any other in that respect?
If your computing experience leaves much to be desired it’s more-often-than-not the fault of the fact more and more applications are eschewing (admittedly neglected) efficient native platforms and using Electron/WebViews.
…looking at you, Balena Etcher. No-one needs a 200MB front-end for `dd`.
Completely agree. In my current role, I work with a lot more "normal" computer users, and it's helped me have a better understanding of many consumer technologies from different perspectives
I have seen the survey results and work studies for our large enterprise of Mac users, most (not all, but most) have zero change in satisfaction or perceived or objective work performance with 8GB vs 16GB MacBooks. Most users are swapping between outlook, teams and chrome, anything more than an M2 8GB MacBook Pro would be a waste for these users. Disk performance is similar, anything in the M line is more than good enough for 75%+ of our users. Mac screens and keyboards have very high customer satisfaction in our org. Just like 16 GB of RAM, it does not translate to a measurable increase in work performance, but subjectively people report higher satisfaction.
As for cost, the MacBook has a lower total cost of ownership in our organization than a Windows PC at a similar purchase price because: 1) longer OS support timeline from apple means they can be used longer and 2) at the end of their lifespan with us, they have much higher resale value than comparable windows hardware.
Just a different perspective as to why 8GB MacBooks make sense for some users.
I can see exactly one, and it's niche: the ability to safely leave tiny USB-A peripherals like flash drives, wireless dongles, and SFF YubiKeys connected while not in use (not that I'm recommending a YubiKey be left connected to a laptop when not in use).
Hubs are mostly only relevant for docking or increasing the number of ports, given that USB-A to -C adapters are so cheap (assuming they're not bundled with the peripheral in the first place) you can reasonably leave them permanently attached to larger form factor USB-A peripherals.
As for full-sized HDMI, assuming you're not talking about the hellish mini or micro HDMI as alternatives, I'll take USB-C, or even mini DisplayPort, over full HDMI, as both have decent connectors and provide more and better inexpensive options for display connectivity (though admittedly finding good active DisplayPort-to-HDMI dongles can be harder than it should be because chroma subsampling is a thing that's not frequently touched upon in product descriptions).
You're proving the point. The computer you found wins on the specs page for sure. But the proof is in the pudding; Apple makes money hand over fist because they focus on reasonable specs, and quality. The thing that kills a modern laptop is not a slow CPU or RAM on the chip; it's a cheap chassis that breaks. That's what makes people change their computer.
> Apple doesn’t load your computer up with crapware and ads from the five different companies in the supply chain.
No apple prefers to have a monopoly on ads and crapware but they're still there.
The internet is filled with annoyed apple customers who want to debloat their systems:
You didn't read any of those, did you. They're asking about things like, literally: How can I delete the Chess app? How do I disable Spotlight? How do I remove Siri?
Those are not in any way comparable to ads or Candy Crush in the start menu.
I still haven't figured out how to remove Microsoft Store apps from the Start menu in recent non-LTSC versions of Windows 11, even on Enterprise with the Enterprise-only "disable consumer experiences" Group Policy key set.
Suggestion for any Microsofties listening: give me an easy way to override Windows key press-and-release to open the PowerToys Command Palette, and I'll never complain about the Start menu again.
What makes it horrifying? Plastic? Is the only thing that's important the material it's made out of? I think there's many use cases where the Acer would be less horrifying to use than the Neo. Which device would be better for running a Linux VM for CS class homework for example?
Why bother with a VM for Linux on the Acer? Just run it natively. There's almost nothing that actually requires Microsoft anymore, and you'll get better performance.
A vanishingly small number of end users (both PC and Mac) care about how much RAM they have. I'd be willing to bet that at least 75% of PC and Mac laptop owners couldn't even tell you how much RAM they have, or they mistake hard disk storage for RAM or vice versa.
Huh, guess I’ve never worked at a Mac shop big enough to suffer Mac-ruining software. My biggest shop only had about 15,000 employees, so maybe it’s only the large companies enduring that.
You never had GlobalProtect take a multi-Gbps connection down to <20Mbps due to all that userland processing of packets thanks to Apple's lack of vendor kext.
I had a Dell Latitude 7320 from 2022 as a corporate laptop. New it costed well over $2000. It was thermal throttling like crazy and it was even worse when I was on calls. It’s battery wouldn’t last more than an hour and even when you put it to sleep the fan would keep spinning. It would take more than 15 to restart and another 10 for most of the apps to open. It was literally unusable. Meanwhile my M1 MacBook from 2020 is still going strong.
I have a Dell Latitude from 2010 that is still goes strong (albeit it has no more battery). None of my classmates' Apples from that era, or the replacements, or the replacements for those replacements, or the replacements for the replacements of the replacements, are still working.
I also have a Thinkpad from 2000 that still works.
I double checked, the hardware is fine. It's a mix of catastrophic Nvidia drivers and Windows 11 famous lack of optimization. I'm much happier on my 3x cheaper laptop on Linux that can handle three 144hz displays flawlessly on the iGPU.
The irony of your last line. The whole thing of the Neo is that it feels distinctly not glued together—- not true of the $400 “comparables” you have in mind. I’m convinced the people who make these sorts of comments have either never experienced a non-terrible trackpad, or simply don’t care to.
The internet is full of these comments that go for ages in Mac vs PC discussions, but with the Neo pricing the arguments are breaking apart. Seeing the PC arguers bring up the being poor argument against the Mac buyers is showing how disruptive the Neo actually is.
I was at Costco and ran browserbench speed test on the Neo vs several of the windows laptops. The neo beat them all, even the $1199 laptop.
The $500 windows laptop for sale actually performed worse than my 2011 27" iMac running Linux Mint.
Used T model Thinkpad probably? That's the least original advice you're going to get if you ask a bunch of nerds, and these guys know their computers ;)
i don't think it makes much sense to recommend specific craptops, every manufacturer seems to have a bazillion SKUs they reset every six months in that price range... buy whatever's on sale :p
You are right about the first part but I think you're overestimating the number of people that see Apple products as status symbols. Maybe that was true a decade ago but I don't think it is anymore. Enough of the products have found their way to every country imaginable over time that an Apple laptop is... just another laptop.
A fun, brightly colored, relatively inexpensive, Windows-less laptop that you can use for doing your taxes while watching a movie has appeal. The performance isn't that important, so long as it is as responsive as the owner's phone.
People do see a high quality build laptop as a status symbol or a piece of luxury. Not having keyboard flex or general creaks really makes a laptop more enjoyable to use.
I kinda agree with you but consider that the perf on apple silicon is so much better that you’re probably still better off using the gimped tablet thing.
200$ ThinkPad...? The current best sellers on Amazon US are two 180$ brand new laptops.
Intel Celeron N4020, 4Gb ram, 64 GB storage, 1366x768.
This is what the average computer user is using to try to run your apps and websites. And remember - a cheap laptop bought today is going to be in use for at least five years.
The only things I recognize on that are the CPU brand name (there have been times the Celeron has been good bang for the buck), the RAM, and the storage (I guess and the resolution).
To me, all of those seem woefully underpowered, but $180 is $180...
The neo is the Chromebook for education revolution. It’s cheap and better than 98%+ of windows laptops. I’d not be surprised to see further Mac penetration to the business sector
I think it’s worth mentioning also- 8 GB ram on a Mac is not the same as 8 GB on a windows OS machine, given the poor state of windows as an OS as of the past few years.
Do browsers and Electron apps magically take up less memory on Macs? What is "good enough?" I never notice problems on my 16GB Windows laptop, so just for fun I closed all of my 6 always-on Electron-type apps, all of the 10 browser windows I had open, a couple other ever-present apps, and it looks like without anything else Windows 10 takes about 4GB, which I think is in the same ballpark as OS X. And I probably have some stuff running that I didn't close, this is very unscientific.
Anecdotally also, my one laptop that I've upgraded to Windows 11 is a lot snappier. As a rule I haven't noticed memory pressure on any device I've owned ever as a "regular user," it only really applies to gaming and heavy development with lots of VMs, especially these days.
I don’t see much “for anybody”, but I do see a lot of “for students / people who browse the web / word processing” which is still a pretty large set of people, and the Neo handles those workloads just fine
13” is not really that small. It’s a screen size many people choose.
The Neo is also not a play for businesses directly. It seems pretty clearly a play for students who will eventually enter the business world with their personal laptop preferences.
I spent one year using an M1 8GB Macbook Air as a professional developer during covid. The A18 Pro flies around the M1. You can definitely use this as a dev - especially when we're just prompting AI nowadays.
I bought my mother in law a Lenovo Thinkbook for Christmas; I didn't know that the Macbook Neo was coming else I might have waited for that.
Anyway, I installed Linux Mint on there. She has been using it every day and at least according to her there hasn't really been any jank (and I told her to call me any time if something breaks and I'll fix it).
At this point, I think Linux distros have gotten good enough to realistically start stealing users away from Windows. Linux Mint is easy to use, runs fine even on modest hardware, and doesn't push a bunch of shitty ads at you. I think there is an option for telemetry, but I also think that disabling it actually disables it.
Wine and Proton have gotten so good that outside of modern MS Office, most Windows things just run if you need it, but if you're not using MS Office heavily then you likely can get by with web apps and/or the Linux alternatives.
Maybe it really will be the Year of the Linux Desktop!
> I would never advise anyone buy a Microsoft Windows laptop these days — between the forced updates, the account and service-fee thirst, ads, and consumer unfriendly product release process (forced opt-in).
Buying a Windows laptop is a default even for a lot of Linux users because the alternatives are mostly too US-centric. In Asia, Framework only delivers to Taiwan - which is astounding given the technically advanced population of consumers in South East Asia. I'm not aware of System76 etc having any sales channels and after sales service setup in Asia either.
Until Asahi becomes a stable choice on Macs, if you want to run Linux on a laptop of a reputable brand, a Windows laptop is basically the only option (even though you may just wipe it). I kept mine dual boot not because I actually use Windows at home but because I paid for the bloody license, even though against my wishes.
Buying a gaming laptop is like buying have a sports car. Sure, it looks nice, and you may even be able to wheel it around a bit. But it's not the ideal experience.
> Meanwhile every MacOS thread is filled with people complaining how everything is broken and only getting worse.
Having been using Macs for work and home use for the last few years, I have to say you’re right. And yet, in spite of that, I’d still rather use MacOS over Windows. The fans on my Mac never start spinning up as soon as the login screen appears or randomly when it’s sitting untouched on my desk, I never find MacOS to have rebooted in the middle of the night without asking me, it doesn’t constantly nag me to use iCloud more, and it never shows ads for Apple shit in Finder.
When I use MacOS, the worst I feel is the developers are a bit sloppy. When I use Windows, I feel like the developers actively hate me.
Apple is in the process of fixing Tahoe which was a regression from Sequoia the previous release. Tahoe is decent with 26.4 though from what I am hearing. Either OS version is far far better than regular Windows 11 though.
Apple’s real differentiator is their silicon. M series chips are just incredibly good and you get a full workday out of them on battery.
The M1 Pro I still have at work is easily the best laptop I have ever used. For side projects I use an M4 air with maxed out RAM and it has no issues with anything I have thrown at it.
I'm also still on my M1 and I just don't see a need to upgrade. I've never owned a laptop this long without even considering getting a new one. It's still so fast, so cool, great screen, biometric unlocking... it's just incredible.
Let me push back and say that is not the point of university.
If you take the stance that education's function is to act like a feeder for business institutions; I guess? But that's only one byproduct of a strong education. Another is research; the other is critical thinking and civil productivity as a whole.
I'm as pro-capital as any private industry-focused tech worker is; but lets not pretend that's all the value we get out of the humanities.
But that isn't the pitch. "You go to college so you can get a good job..."
The fact is, the entire college/university system is outsized and wrong-fit for what most people actually need. And while I don't think humanities programs should be cut from universities, I also don't think that taxpayer backed student loans or payouts should be made for programs that have vastly more people enrolled in than the general economy has a demand/need for.
I'd like to see more accredited options for trade schools beyond what people currently think of as trades. From accounting, to software development. I know there are some schools that focus on these things, I just think they should be more at the forefront and higher profile options.
Isn't it fine if different degrees lead to different job opportunities? A nineteen year old should be able to understand the difference between the job market for a doctor or engineer and the job market for an MFA.
We don't need to have different institutions to grant different degrees with different levels of marketability. A college that only taught lucrative subjects and a college that taught non-lucrative subjects would both offer less educational value than a single college that offered the full range.
Sure... have all the options out there.. but taking on debt, and the risks associated should also account for the ability and risk of paying it back or not... which is pretty heavily dependent on the program in question.
I'm fine with people choosing whatever they want... but then the question comes down to how/who pays for it... and I'm emphatically not in favor of public (taxpayer) funding for programs that don't have a direct need/demand in society or the economy in general.
You want to be a fine arts major.. go for it. It may be harder if you need student loans to pay for it, when there's a few thousand people working on that degree and a few hundred jobs in the world of demand.
Someone graduating with a BFA intending to teach art or music at the K-12 level might be very satisfied with their job prospects and the life it leads to. There are at the very least tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of art and music teachers in the United States.
A bachelor's degree is required to be a K-12 teacher, so if it's impossible for teachers to pay undergraduate student loans, the problem is not with the teacher or the degree they chose to get.
A BFA wont qualify you to work as a teacher at an accredited school in the US. Positions at those schools that allow you to "teach" without a teaching degree are typically part time and volunteer.
What do you mean? Music and art teachers typically have BFAs. There are BFA programs designed for teachers, including the pedagogical training that qualifies them for teaching.
My BFA does not qualify me to be a teacher anywhere I have looked (south east, new england, ca). I do not meet the educational requirements or the practical classroom time to got a teaching certificate required to teach K-12.
I am sure there are programs that are a mix between a typical BFA program and a teaching degree, but that is not the norm.
Oh, yeah, if you don't specifically train to be a teacher, you won't qualify. I'm just saying that (AFAIK, and from a specifically Texas perspective) most people who intend to be art or music teachers get a BFA. Many of my high school teachers earned degrees specific to their subject, like B.S. in Chemistry, B.A. in History, B.A. in Literature, while concurrently completing the coursework that qualified them for teaching. You don't have to be an education major. Most state universities also have programs for people who have a bachelors degree to complete the requirements for teaching, too, and I think those programs qualify for financial aid even if they don't lead to an additional degree.
A social media ad company would be the least favourable. At least Google's central ad business is based off of search queries the user gives to them willingly for value.
This was the case, like, 20 years ago. Google is effectively an ad company that makes tech — including a browser — to gather more data from users and sell ads.
i really enjoy perplexity. i recommend taking advantage of one of the o2 resale deals out there so that its like $7/yr instead of $240 and let the VCs eat the rest. I don’t know of any better ai access deals out there. It’s absurd and unsustainable.
I have to admit, everytime I hear the "Two guys hated x, so they built their own!" I see the XCKD cartoon https://xkcd.com/927/
It's not a fair comparison; competition can drive price down, but I pessimistically just see two guys who'll inevitably join the Comcast billionaires club. That's just where these "small guys" end up.
People pointing out NLP are missing the point — pulling and crafting rules to run effective NLP is time consuming and technical. With an LLM you can just ask it exactly what you want and it interprets. That's the value; and as this deal just proved it's worth the scaling costs.
The point that is missed isn't about LLMs adequacy as a NLP technique, it's that they cost you 10000 times more for the same effect (after the upfront set-up), which is why I have my doubts that they will be used at scale, at the center of some large data ingestion pipeline. The benefit will probably be for the out of ordinary tasks and outliers.
There are so many cool things like this all over Japan, and only a very small percentage of them get completely run-over with international tourists. Even an hour or two outside of Tokyo, many not-so-hidden treasures like this can be found. And there aren't many tourists at these spots.
Take last year's "Lawson with a view of Mount Fuji" thing. The city had to to take all kinds of counter-measures to international tourists flocking there just to take a photo. Meanwhile, there are dozens more Lawsons in the area with epic views of Mount Fuji in the background, and not a tourist in sight.
Yes, I agree, because life would get boring really quickly. People should be able to express themselves (in a civil, legal manner) so that the world can be more colourful and filled with art and beauty.
But also no, I don't agree. Have you seen the impact tourism in Japan has had on the local ecosystem as of late? They've literally banned tourists in some areas because frankly: more tourists act like animals. They litter, act rude and disrespectful, and are just obnoxious. Also, in a lot of cases, they provide little to no financial growth or benefit to the local economy. Look at Venice, for example.
So I think when making something like this, there has to be some degree of forward thinking around how it's going to divert (tourist) traffic to the area and what impact that's going to have on the locals.
No patience for these complaints. Either you want tourist money or you don't. Seems like half the city lives off it and the other half hates it. That's an internal problem.
I think the main concern is about the capacity to handle that many tourists. As the population increases and general prosperity increases, amount of tourists will correspondingly increase. There are not that many tourist spots for a given location and causes overrun. There need to be some throttling function. Probably increase the cost/tax, or reduce the visas. Or increase the ability to handle so many tourists. I don't know how this can be done. May be better infrastructure and new places of interests.
>little to no financial growth or benefit to the local economy. Look at Venice
A quick Google search confirms tourism is the dominant industry in Venice. The claim that this fuels "little to no financial growth", is therefore first-order backwards. If you could set forth an edict and gradually empty Venice out into a touristless town over the next 5 years, you would probably see economic growth tumble downwards, not up.
Now capitalism would eventually catch up, it always does. Italians are cool people and hard workers. But ask e.g. the Baltic states whether they're secretly happy they lost ~a century of economic growth before finally getting the chance to enter a boom time, because it meant their economies stayed local. Then ask them another question: Suppose you didn't have much industry of note, but tourists just loved you and flocked from all over the world to see you, would you take that? I think you'd have a lot of takers.
One should a much stronger argument than "But... but tourism is icky" before you go messing with one of the primary economic levers of a whole city. Preferably an argument backed up by graphs and forecasts, because it runs contrary to basic economic wisdom. Absent those I feel comfortable guessing that the median Japanese town which bans tourists will probably suffer economically for it, in no small part because that suggests tourists were at some point a big deal. Any eventual industrial rebound, if it happens at all, will happen because they gradually became cheaper to work in than surrounding areas (I wonder why?), and would not be sufficient to make up for the lost compound growth of the 5-10 years where a key industry for that area was kneecapped.
> A quick Google search confirms tourism is the dominant industry in Venice. The claim that this fuels "little to no financial growth", is therefore first-order backwards.
How much of the money stays in Venice? Just because you handed over cash at a till in a cafe in Venice, doesn't mean a single local sees a lick of that money. They might not even see a lick of the taxes, neither. I've been to Venice... have you? Thanks for Googling about Venice, but try going and speaking to the locals, because I have.
The claim that “tourism has little financial benefits to the local economy in Venice” is debatable and context-dependent. Here's a detailed breakdown addressing both why the claim may be true in some aspects, and why it may be misleading or false in others.
---
Arguments Supporting the Claim:
1. High Leakage of Tourist Revenue
Much of the tourist spending in Venice ends up outside the local economy:
Many hotels, cruise lines, and travel agencies are owned by foreign or non-local entities.
Revenue often flows to large tour operators, not to Venetians themselves.
Day-trippers (especially cruise passengers) spend very little per capita.
2. Overtourism and Cost Externalization
The externalities of mass tourism (e.g. garbage collection, water bus crowding, maintenance of ancient infrastructure) are borne by the municipality and residents, not by tourists.
The economic cost of wear and tear on fragile historical structures is immense and undercompensated.
3. Loss of Local Businesses and Services
Traditional shops and services (bakeries, fishmongers, schools) are being replaced by souvenir shops and Airbnbs, which often serve short-term tourists.
This creates a "hollow economy" where real life becomes unviable for locals.
4. Depopulation and Real Estate Inflation
Real estate is increasingly purchased by investors for short-term rentals, pushing locals out and reducing residential density.
Venice’s population has dropped from ~175,000 in 1950s to under 50,000 today in the historic center.
5. Low Multiplier Effect
Much of the employment created is low-paid, seasonal, precarious, and lacks career development.
Limited reinvestment into the community fabric (education, public health, sustainable infrastructure).
---
Counterarguments (Why Tourism Still Brings Economic Benefit):
1. Tourism Is a Major Employer
A significant portion of Venetian jobs is in hospitality, transport, and retail, all tied to tourism.
Completely removing tourism would collapse the current local job market.
2. Tax Revenues
The city imposes tourist taxes (tassa di soggiorno) on accommodations and more recently, even entrance fees for day-trippers.
These can help fund infrastructure and conservation—if well-managed.
3. Export Substitute
Venice doesn’t have a diversified industrial base. Tourism is one of the few export-equivalent services Venice can offer due to its geographic isolation and fragile ecosystem.
---
Conclusion
While tourism contributes significantly in gross economic terms, the net local financial benefit is undermined by:
revenue leakage,
rising costs of living,
poor job quality,
and infrastructure stress.
Thus, the statement is partially true: mass tourism as currently structured in Venice is unsustainable and offers diminishing marginal returns to locals, especially compared to the burdens it imposes
Can't really blame click economy when travel is promoted as universal good from local, state and national governments all over the world. Travel used to be few times in a lifetime thing. Now it is like everyone should be traveling few times a year at least.
> Now it is like everyone should be traveling few times a year at least
You and I live in different worlds. I only know one person who travels that often, after he became wealthy from a successful buy out. Overwhelmingly the people around me travel a handful of times in a lifetime.
Most people I know are not rich but have or had ok jobs and they all travel 4-5x / year. Most do all inclusive trips mixed with once a year a longer trip. It is quite weird as I myself am somewhat confused how they manage; when asked they mostly say that they dont have other use for the money anyway.
Don’t underestimate domestic Japanese tourism! To be fair, it feels a bit different, compared to international, as there’s no language barrier and etc.
Guess what? With Apple's new Neo laptop the price is also way way wayyy out to lunch.
If MSFT gives a business a huge bulk discount to buy their laptops + Office360 + Teams... OK? But as a "consumer" it really sucks.
Want PC gaming? Steamdeck or Steambox.
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