druidjaidan

joined 2 years ago
[–] druidjaidan@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

The problem it solves is that most small airports are located miles away from the communities they serve. That isn't an issue with a car, but it does suck when traveling.

Uber/Lyft have mostly solved this problem. However. There are plenty of small rural communities or small vacation destinations which are too rural to have taxis or uber/lyft.

Is it worth it? No. But it's a legit problem

[–] druidjaidan@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

This is more complicated than you think. The vast majority of airports in the US are tiny little things you would barely know are there unless you're a pilot. Most don't have rental car services. Many are in communities where even lyft/uber are not available.

The flying car thing is still pretty dumb. But it's not as dumb as it might first sound. One of the #1 problems my family has when we fly our (very small, very old) plane on trips is how to get from the airport to anyplace reasonable.

[–] druidjaidan@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Woah woah woah. Not even close to true. The only things you can fly without a license is a single seat ultralight, paramotor, and similar things that most people would barely think of as a plane. There are very specific and restrictive requirements, both on the aircraft and what you can do with it.

Anything bigger, homebuilt or not, will require a LSA license at least ans many (if not most) a full PPL.

[–] druidjaidan@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

It's not really surprising. The demand for printers has fallen off a cliff due to wide acceptance of digital alternatives. People barely need printers now and as such aren't willing to pay much for them.

This is further exacerbated by the reality that a printer is actually a fairly high precision device and expensive to manufacture.

So you have an expensive to manufacture device that consumers aren't willing to pay much for. So what happens? They adopt a consumable based business with the printers being locked down to force you to buy their overpriced, high margin consumables that have a low absolute price so consumers don't think about it much.

Let's say that we regulate away this lock in. What will happen? Well the price of printers would have to climb to match their actual cost to manufacture. That price would likely turn off consumers from buying them at all. The end result would be the end of the printer business altogether. Maybe not a bad thing as not printing at all is likely a better ecological outcome.