It’s all getting very “Idiocracy” like.
Tech is great, I’m all for it (((where it provides some advantage))).
But a lot of this tech to me is regressive.
We are building things that are in reality more disposable, use more batteries, have a shorter designed life and are LESS environmental.
We are making cars that are becoming lighter and smaller to be more fuel economical that are LESS safe.
We are building things that can no longer easily be repaired, are super complex and packed with dependent systems that are all communicating, they use proprietary parts that aren’t available after a few years which makes them LESS durable, LESS reliable.
Things are going backwards!
It’s just that the POS you buy has lots of blinking lights, USB ports and listens to you, sending advertisement to your phone. That’s called progress.
You have made an important and insightful set of observations. I remember years ago when shopping for a CD player the shop keeper told me, “The best units are these ugly things from Germany. The ones Americans buy are these over there with the flashy LEDs”.